Komsomol'skaya Pravda.
12-Oct-2005
Searching for a National Idea.
http://www.kp.ru/daily/23594/45470/print/
Translation: mine.
Writer Mikhail Veller: Maybe we should swap the Kuril islands for Crimea and implement a Christian dictatorship.
Having completed his new book The Last Great Chance, this renowed author visited Komsomol'skaya Pravda and told us what this chance entails.
-Mikhail Iosifovich, please tells us - are all of us rossiyane (Note: Russian citizens) or Russians?
-Russians, of course! Because the Russian nation is collective in origin. Even "Moscow", rather than being Slavic, is a Finno-Ugric word "Moskova". Here we have Mordovians, Turkic peoples, Caucasians, and guys of northern Germanic-Scandinavian descent. All of this had been melted together and became the Russian peoples. All great nations have always been collective. Even the concept of "Russians" only emerged under Ivan the Terrible.
-Then why didn't Russians melt Ukraine into their pot? Or at least tiny Estonia?
-Had the Soviet Union existed for another thousand years, then one may have anticipated the assimilation of all people. Because when a person was worth anything or wanted to have a good career in the Russian Empire or in the Soviet Union, he inevitably underwent russification. Everything passed through the Russian language, Russian culture, Russian capital. The Baltics were joined to the Russian Empire somewhat late. And the Soviet Union led rather sparing national politics there.
-What about Ukraine?
-Well, Ukraine is not simply russified, this was the original Rus' - Kievan. If it weren't for the Tartar-Mongolian invasion, this would have been a unified pot of culturally equal slavic principalities. And as a result, all of this would have been baked into a single state, like a layered cake.
-Why did the Empire collapse?
-Because it exhausted itself. Keep in mind that Russia was initially created via the force of weapons, as were all empires in history. Not otherwise. For a thousand years our national idea was the unification of principalities, then the takeover of new territories, then - their "digestion".
And then all of a sudden, the Empire informed all of its subjects that it just so happens that imperial politics are bad, and we are giving up on them. What was there left to do? Only let itself dissipate.
A thief must be jailed
-And what now?
-And now everyone rushed to create a new national idea. But you cannot just make one up. It has to be natural, a problem projected onto psychology of the people.
This problem is yet to be posed. We are offered the following: let us live comfortably with our bellies full, dear Russians. Thanks a lot. Consumerism cannot embody a national idea. Then it's more beneficial to steal a bunch of goods and say - okay, guys, I think I've fulfilled my idea!
Even a mouse wants a good life - to live in a warm burrow with a full granary and to comfortably produce its offspring. Therefore today's idea is simply that of a mouse.
-In that case, please suggest to us something more interesting.
-Russia's national idea can only arise with departure of liberalism, which is the cause of Europe's current demise. An accelerated demise. Because liberalism states: everyone is equal and identical.
In a normal country, however, a murderer hangs, a thief is jailed, a hard worker lives well, while a lazy worker lives poorly. And the one who does not work at all gets the hell out, without stinking up the country or mooching off the welfare system. Or goes to live in a shelter. Into reservations.
-One who does not work, does not get to eat?
-Yes, something like that. As a result, liberalism cultivates parasitism. Not unlike the Roman Empire - bread and entertainment. Where is this empire now? Modern social parasites in Europe are the classic Roman plebeians, who do not wish to work, but wish to lives in accordance with their desires. They demand this via demonstrations. And the government flirts with them, because it wants votes.
-Exactly. People vote for this type of government. Therefore, they must like it.
-Russian people are not fully spoiled by this. They have a different idea. I doubt that you'd print it...
-...well, now we'd certainly have to print it.
-We'll see. To quote a vendor [I met] by the subway - she will be completely satisfied, when oligarchs and parliamentarians are strung up on light posts along the street. That's the kind of national idea that's blooming from below.
Europe will sell us out
-Is Russia not Europe?
-No, it is not Europe, because the very posing of the question garners doubts. No one asks: is Germany - Europe?
-Do you seriously believe that this [concept] is good for Russia?
-Forty years ago it would have been very bad - that we are not Europe. Today - it is good. Today this is our chance. If we were to join Europe, we would not have a single chance left.
When we say that we want to be part of Europe, we really mean that we want to be wealthy and live freely. At the same time we don't want to change our mentality. We do not feel insecure about all things Russian in front of all things French and German.
And if we do join them, do you really think that our mentality would immediately change? No. This [union] will only result in diminished customs control at the border. This is only beneficial to those who send oil, gas, forestry products, and metal to the West.
It, however, is not beneficial to the rest, because our manufacturing sector cannot handle a competion with Europe. We will ultimately become a source of natural resources and nothing more.
-But is it not better to sell ourselves to Europe than be swallowed by China?
-China will compromise with Europe. Europe does not want to fight or even save itself from complete islamification. And when Europe is face to face with a powerful totalitarian state armed to its teeth, it’ll hand Siberia over to China, and that’ll be the end of it. Back in the day, it handed the Czech Republic over to Hitler. Europe does not give a damn about Russian interests.
-Then maybe America will save us?
-Riiiight! America is also afraid of China. But America does not need Europe as a competitor. America would prefer to have Russia against China and Europe. Therefore in reality, Russia is a strategic partner for America.
-But for now it looks like we are better friends with China against the U.S.A...
-That’s just for show. America does not have any territorial grievances with Russia. No ideologic disagreements. Russia does not participate in anything that would outright horrify America. And further more, it is America, not Europe and China, that above all respects power. Russia’s nuclear arsenal is still present. And for the U.S.A. this is a big argument in our favor.
Eastern Orthodoxy must have fists
-What specifically should our national idea involve?
-The preservation of the Christian civilization.
-What are we going to do with muslims, jews, and atheists? Send them to Siberia too?
-They don’t have to be sent anywhere. And no one should be baptized by force either. By “Christianity” I don't refer to the type of religious worship, but rather - societal values. But they are loosened. Why did Christianity conquer ancient Rome? Because Rome became liberal and allowed everything. While Christianity said – none of this crap. This you have to do, but that will send you to hell. Christians had a definite set of values – what is good, and what is evil.
Europe and Russia no longer follow them. This is why Islam is winning. It has definite values. Islam tells you what is allowed and what is not.
This is why, among others, Russia needs an Eastern Orthodox reform. Orthodoxy must become a living religion, rather than a ritual, as it is now, when bureaucrats hold candles next to their lenten mugs, while yawning priests stand nearby, having successfully purchased a candle factory for the occasion.
-What should we do in particular?
-We must walk one step ahead of destiny. It is unnecessary to wait for inevitability. Kuril islands are already lost for Russia. Today we have absolutely no useful purpose for them. We don’t have the money or a reason to maintain serious bases there. And today we can still bargain for these islands, but in 15 years they will be gone free of charge.
The same applies to East Prussia - Kaliningrad region. Its residents don't need Russia. If the EU tells them, "Hey guys, have dual citizenship, have social welfare up to our standards"; oh my God, what a celebration this would cause! Today we can still rent East Prussia to Germans for 49 years. And milk German blood and gold with tankers thanks to this [transaction]. But in 15 years it will leave on its own, and nothing will get milked.
-You are suggesting that we give them away....
-I am suggesting that we receive the maximum out of what we can hope for. These territories are suitcases without handles for us, regardless.
-But when Abkhazia cries out to us, "Hey guys, we are your brothers, we want to live in Russia", for some reason we think, "What would Georgia and Europe say?" Who gives a damn about what Georgia and Europe would say! All that they can really do is freeze our guys' bank accounts in the West. Well, then, we just need to warn our guys - let them return their money to Russia. Otherwise it will be too late.
-What else are you offering to trade?
-Eastern Russia. It is not ours. Only 145 years had passed since Vladivostok's foundation. We need to give up this stuff as concession to the Japanese and the Koreans against China. We need to create a standard brawl between one type of barbarians against the other on our borders. This is how all shrewed governments acted.
However, that, which is ours and is located nearby, becomes part of Russia, without giving a damn about political correctness.
-Crimea, for example...
-Crimea first and foremost! They need to have a referendum. People, of course, will vote for unification with Russia. Then Moscow imposes a visa regime, which must be satisfied. And then there will be a celebration that will greatly exceed that in East Prussia after its return to Germans.
All skin, but no kielbasa
-What will then happen to the organization of the state?
-For now, it has to be a dictatorship, I'm afraid.
-And democracy is absolutely impossible?
-Democarcy is an optimal speed for a car. But when you are stuck in mud, you need extreme measures in order to get back on the road.
-It seems that certain individuals already scream that we almost have a "bloody regime"
-What regime? Please. Our dictatorship is like kielbasa - we've got the skin, but not the kielbasa itself.
-Who will elect the first dicator? The government or the people?
-Representatives of all parties and movements are locked up for a week. They are not allowed to come out, until they elect someone. Otherwise in France we easily find pedigree-lacking corsican Napoleon, while here we get Ryurikovich - prince Trubetskoy, who does not at all show up to Senatsky square during the Decembrists' rebellion.
-Does the dictator have to be Russian?
-Ideally, it's better for him to be Russian and Christian. But, you know, if he really needs to, he can get baptized himself.
-Wouldn't all of this result in ordinary fascism?
-There are 10-12 chances out of 100 that we will reach a dictatorship of a fascistic nature, and this will be very bad.
-What is your dictatorship like?
-Constitutional. My dictator is an unconditional ruler. Not a tyrant, but rather the highest executive person in possession of emergency powers and specific targets for the duration of a rigidly defined term. If you don't leave on the day your term ends - you are outside of the law, have no civil rights, and are an enemy of the people.
-This sounds like GKChP (Note: leaders of 1991 Russian coup)
-GKChP is the diminution of people's rights and the expansionof authorities' rights. A constitutional dictatorship, in contrast, is the rights' reduction of the very bureaucratic apparatus in question. Because in this case the will of the people directly transforms into action via the dictator's will, instead of being skewed when passing the bureaucratic ladder along the way. It is the bureaucrat, who loses his rights.
-And then we will become the greatest country in the world?
-Greater than America - doubtful. America is like a combined world team. It is difficult to compete with such. With China as well. That, however, which was once Europe, can exist in Russia in its best manifestation, once Germany and France no longer exist. It's most important for people to live like people. Throughout history our nobility and later the party elite lived like Europeans, while the rest of the people - like Russian "aboriginals". Essentially, there have always been two peoples within Russia. Euro-Russians and simply Russians. Today this must no longer be the case.
Showing posts with label christian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label christian. Show all posts
07 May 2006
12 February 2006
A Nameday or a Coffin on Wheels
Every year on January 27th I celebrate my nameday. While namedays are an integral part of Christian belief, it seems that in this day and age Slavs, both Orthodox and Catholic, are most familiar with this tradition. In contrast, many local Christians, regardless of their background, react with a polite clueless smile and a blank stare when asked. In Russian specifically, this celebration is customarily called an "angel's day", referring to a “guardian angel”, of course, although defined properly, it is a "saint's day" instead.
Who gets to have a nameday?
As long as one's given name possesses certain hagiographic relevance, one is bound to qualify. Of course, several Christian names are rather common and are shared by more than one saint - Catherine, for example. In turn, such nominal popularity translates into numerous calendar days dedicated to various saint Catherines. In this case, her mere mortal namesake must choose the closest date following her birthday as her official nameday.
In the olden days, when masculinity was not penalized, when women actually had concern for fulfilling their biological roles, and when honor had a higher price tag than life, namedays held greater value than the most selfish holiday of all – a birthday. Recently I unintentionally came across a material testament to this convention, when I was looking through my extremely disorganized photographic collection - a collection of proofs, rather than fewer professional prints I’ve produced, to be precise, stored in often-mislabeled envelopes. This was a usual search for certain live shots from a metal festival I had attended a couple of years ago. Instead, the first plastic container I checked included several pre-Revolutionary family photographs - the only ones my mother allowed me to grab from home, because they were duplicates.
"You'll get the rest when I die", she explained.
She has always been rather morbid.
I also came across a clear plastic sleeve used to store a single fragile sheet of paper yellowed with age. It was folded in half, because it was too large for the sleeve, and because I was too disrespectful to find the time to purchase something more suitable. I noticed the elaborate inked imperial emblem glued to the back of the sheet – Russia’s two-headed eagle with various heraldic symbols drawn inside its wings. It only took a century to abolish it and to reintroduce it, to strip it of its coats of arms and to cynically and at the same time affectionately call it “the chicken”. The “chicken’s” appearance is just as outdated as the more elaborate alphabet used inside the page. We simplified that too.
Dead letters revealed the document’s content: this was a hand-written telegram receipt - that much I remembered - dated 10:45 am of July 25th, 1907. Wide, easily legible despite the outdated alphabet, hundred-year old pencil (!) strokes revealed the occasion - my great-grandfather's wedding felicitations mailed by his brother. He also sent good wishes to an undisclosed female for the occasion of her angel's day.
I quickly searched the online Eastern Orthodox nameday database to determine which family member the wishes were meant for. There was only one suitable candidate - Olympiada, my great-great-grandmother. She was a quintessential citizen of the Great Russian Empire - a Belorussian woman who lived in Georgia. She had piercing blue eyes, big hair, and wore frilly dresses. Her nameday was on August 7th.
Growing up, her grandson - my gradfather too upheld our ancestral spirit by emphasizing the continued importance of a nameday.
"Your great-grandmother Nadia – the one who attended Sorbonne – do you know where that is, Ninochka? In Paris!"
My mother was a fairly late second child, so my grandfather seemed even older than a regular grandfather would. His countless stories about an erased culture that a normal Soviet child had little comprehension of outside the context of Marxist class struggle made it seem even more so. Of course, at this age, children consider thirty-year olds to be quite elderly.
"Were you aware of the fact that Sorbonne was one of the most prestigious educational institutions in Europe, Ninochka? Even more prestigious for a woman and a Russian citizen. Before the Revolution, naturally."
"She was beautiful and spoke flawless French, you know. Taught it too. And in her old age she walked around with a cane with the grace of a queen."
I was then told that this almost-royal great-grandmother of mine entertained her guests in a more grandiose manner than her birthday celebrations. I did not mind the continued focus on this concept: what little girl would complain about one additional reason to receive regularly scheduled gifts and loads of attention?
Nearly two decades later and an ocean away, only close relatives and friends convey their nameday wishes to me and perhaps offer a present or two. Someday I might attempt to elevate this date's status in my life, but this year I simply decided to visit the church and greet Saint Nina, the Enlightener of Georgia and my personal intercessor. When I first began attending, I was pleasantly surprised to find her taking up a prominent position on the south wall, next to a number of other female saints and in the close vicinity of our last czar - recently canonized Nicholas II.
Clad in lengthy garments of a standard female saint in fresco format, she carries the living grapevine cross with which she singlehandedly christianized the ancient land of Georgia - Sakartvelo, around the time of Rome's official acceptance of Christianity; her peaceful, even stoic face gazes far ahead and looks nothing like me. In contrast to many saints, Nina did not die a dreadful tortured death of a martyr, but instead joined the One whose teachings she earnestly propagated in her old age, after a life full of good news and good deeds.
Not like me at all.
Nonetheless, I decided to visit her and to let her know that she still speaks for Georgians around the world, even if not full-blooded, even if mostly Russian, like me. She and I not only share our culture and our name, but so did my grandfather’s wife – grandmother Nina – a woman I had never met. Beautiful like her mother Nadia, she too spoke and taught the language of aristocracy, but was born too late to attend distinguished European schools. And there was one other Nina in our family's recent history - Olympiada’s second daughter, who evidently died in early childhood, as my unfinished genealogical tree indicates.
My good intentions did not crystallize until two weeks later. I blamed my busy, awkward work schedule, drastically fluctuating weather patterns, and everything in between. "At least I made it at all". I chose a quiet Sunday evening, knowing the church would not be full of nosey fanatics, overheated by their massive numbers and religious zeal. I chose an ankle-length skirt and properly covered my hair, thereby reluctantly equating myself to the plethora of Muslim females in the downtown Toronto as well as to Saint Nina herself. I checked my wallet for change to buy candles. I walked in.
I stormed out ten minutes later.
Not even.
There was a coffin in the very middle of the church, and there was a dead man inside it! Not that coffins serve many other purposes, excluding the misguided vampire subculture, whose members enjoy using them as bedding (Sleep Country may discover an entirely new market opportunity here!), but I certainly did not expect to find one during a public service. And not on the night I planned to pay homage to my famed guardian.
To make matters worse, this coffin was on wheels! My astonishment quickly turned into rather inappropriately timed and uncontrollable humor, as I immediately recalled childhood jokes about coffins on wheels. I then blasphemously imagined this coffin rolling through the church like a bumper car. By itself. I also developed an unsettling feeling that the inhabitant of the coffin-on-wheels, which was apparently fashioned out of expensive red wood, will rise any second now and join the evening mass. Like Lazarus or a generic zombie. Do clerical living dead abound in horror film culture?
I should ask the vampires.
This one wore what looked like a bishop’s crown and clutched a small bible and a large cross – signs of his ministry - in each hand. His face was concealed by a cloth, which was periodically removed by the parish members, who evidently arrived to pay their tribute by kissing his forehead and his hand. Did they know him personally, or was this another sign of their fanatic devotion, which usually includes slobbering all over every icon in sight, expensive candles, high intensity workouts consisting of the sign of the cross and ground-level bows on repeat, and last but not least – actively correcting every individual in their path who allegedly fails to follow the ritual impeccably.
“We are not that different”, - I tried to convince myself. “I am here to light a candle for a two-dimensional depiction of my guardian saint, while they kiss the old dead man’s hands as if they were relics, and relics belong to saints.”
Most relics of interest are also several hundred years old. So how long has this deceased been inside the church? One day? Two? Three?!
Despite the absence of electric lighting, I stood close enough to notice how rigid and frozen the man’s hands appeared as he grasped his insignia.
I then recalled my last year’s visit to the touring Body Worlds II exhibition of the works created by German “plastinator” Gunter von Hagens. It was not the artfully dismembered corpses, including a female with a five-month old fetus inside her eviscerated womb, or the ability to see certain specimen’s real faces that disturbed me. It was their hands. Waxy complexion with shrunken skin to reveal long, yellowish, chipped fingernails. Precisely like the lifeless cleric’s hands. The hands that zealous churchgoers were currently slobbering over - transferring living saliva drops to the tiny dead gray hairs protruding from the cleric’s fingers and in turn ingesting dead man’s arid epithelials mixed with previously deposited fanatical spit.
Perhaps those jokes about coffins-on-wheels were not jokes? Perhaps they were stories meant to scare children!
Flickering candlelight’s mystical accents on the gold-plated iconostasis and the otherwordly liturgical songs I usually live for now seemed ominous and a suitable counterpart to this ritual of death. Suddenly, the entire scene turned into a vision of Bosch’s Ghent version of Christ Carrying the Cross: an endless horde of mad bulging eyes, oily gangrenous flesh, greasy hair, putrid teeth, with no room left to breathe.
I could not breathe either. I dashed toward the exist near the south wall, receiving mob’s disapproval along the way despite my clear effort to tippy toe, made an even quicker apologetically distorted sign of the cross as my eyes met Saint Nina, and hopped down the stairs out into the cold winter night.
Saint Nina did not seem to mind my escape. Her expression even appeared indifferent, but she was probably just preoccupied with overseeing the cleric’s lengthy entrance into the next world.
Next time I will visit her on an “off” day.
Who gets to have a nameday?
As long as one's given name possesses certain hagiographic relevance, one is bound to qualify. Of course, several Christian names are rather common and are shared by more than one saint - Catherine, for example. In turn, such nominal popularity translates into numerous calendar days dedicated to various saint Catherines. In this case, her mere mortal namesake must choose the closest date following her birthday as her official nameday.
In the olden days, when masculinity was not penalized, when women actually had concern for fulfilling their biological roles, and when honor had a higher price tag than life, namedays held greater value than the most selfish holiday of all – a birthday. Recently I unintentionally came across a material testament to this convention, when I was looking through my extremely disorganized photographic collection - a collection of proofs, rather than fewer professional prints I’ve produced, to be precise, stored in often-mislabeled envelopes. This was a usual search for certain live shots from a metal festival I had attended a couple of years ago. Instead, the first plastic container I checked included several pre-Revolutionary family photographs - the only ones my mother allowed me to grab from home, because they were duplicates.
"You'll get the rest when I die", she explained.
She has always been rather morbid.
I also came across a clear plastic sleeve used to store a single fragile sheet of paper yellowed with age. It was folded in half, because it was too large for the sleeve, and because I was too disrespectful to find the time to purchase something more suitable. I noticed the elaborate inked imperial emblem glued to the back of the sheet – Russia’s two-headed eagle with various heraldic symbols drawn inside its wings. It only took a century to abolish it and to reintroduce it, to strip it of its coats of arms and to cynically and at the same time affectionately call it “the chicken”. The “chicken’s” appearance is just as outdated as the more elaborate alphabet used inside the page. We simplified that too.
Dead letters revealed the document’s content: this was a hand-written telegram receipt - that much I remembered - dated 10:45 am of July 25th, 1907. Wide, easily legible despite the outdated alphabet, hundred-year old pencil (!) strokes revealed the occasion - my great-grandfather's wedding felicitations mailed by his brother. He also sent good wishes to an undisclosed female for the occasion of her angel's day.
I quickly searched the online Eastern Orthodox nameday database to determine which family member the wishes were meant for. There was only one suitable candidate - Olympiada, my great-great-grandmother. She was a quintessential citizen of the Great Russian Empire - a Belorussian woman who lived in Georgia. She had piercing blue eyes, big hair, and wore frilly dresses. Her nameday was on August 7th.
Growing up, her grandson - my gradfather too upheld our ancestral spirit by emphasizing the continued importance of a nameday.
"Your great-grandmother Nadia – the one who attended Sorbonne – do you know where that is, Ninochka? In Paris!"
My mother was a fairly late second child, so my grandfather seemed even older than a regular grandfather would. His countless stories about an erased culture that a normal Soviet child had little comprehension of outside the context of Marxist class struggle made it seem even more so. Of course, at this age, children consider thirty-year olds to be quite elderly.
"Were you aware of the fact that Sorbonne was one of the most prestigious educational institutions in Europe, Ninochka? Even more prestigious for a woman and a Russian citizen. Before the Revolution, naturally."
"She was beautiful and spoke flawless French, you know. Taught it too. And in her old age she walked around with a cane with the grace of a queen."
I was then told that this almost-royal great-grandmother of mine entertained her guests in a more grandiose manner than her birthday celebrations. I did not mind the continued focus on this concept: what little girl would complain about one additional reason to receive regularly scheduled gifts and loads of attention?
Nearly two decades later and an ocean away, only close relatives and friends convey their nameday wishes to me and perhaps offer a present or two. Someday I might attempt to elevate this date's status in my life, but this year I simply decided to visit the church and greet Saint Nina, the Enlightener of Georgia and my personal intercessor. When I first began attending, I was pleasantly surprised to find her taking up a prominent position on the south wall, next to a number of other female saints and in the close vicinity of our last czar - recently canonized Nicholas II.
Clad in lengthy garments of a standard female saint in fresco format, she carries the living grapevine cross with which she singlehandedly christianized the ancient land of Georgia - Sakartvelo, around the time of Rome's official acceptance of Christianity; her peaceful, even stoic face gazes far ahead and looks nothing like me. In contrast to many saints, Nina did not die a dreadful tortured death of a martyr, but instead joined the One whose teachings she earnestly propagated in her old age, after a life full of good news and good deeds.
Not like me at all.
Nonetheless, I decided to visit her and to let her know that she still speaks for Georgians around the world, even if not full-blooded, even if mostly Russian, like me. She and I not only share our culture and our name, but so did my grandfather’s wife – grandmother Nina – a woman I had never met. Beautiful like her mother Nadia, she too spoke and taught the language of aristocracy, but was born too late to attend distinguished European schools. And there was one other Nina in our family's recent history - Olympiada’s second daughter, who evidently died in early childhood, as my unfinished genealogical tree indicates.
My good intentions did not crystallize until two weeks later. I blamed my busy, awkward work schedule, drastically fluctuating weather patterns, and everything in between. "At least I made it at all". I chose a quiet Sunday evening, knowing the church would not be full of nosey fanatics, overheated by their massive numbers and religious zeal. I chose an ankle-length skirt and properly covered my hair, thereby reluctantly equating myself to the plethora of Muslim females in the downtown Toronto as well as to Saint Nina herself. I checked my wallet for change to buy candles. I walked in.
I stormed out ten minutes later.
Not even.
There was a coffin in the very middle of the church, and there was a dead man inside it! Not that coffins serve many other purposes, excluding the misguided vampire subculture, whose members enjoy using them as bedding (Sleep Country may discover an entirely new market opportunity here!), but I certainly did not expect to find one during a public service. And not on the night I planned to pay homage to my famed guardian.
To make matters worse, this coffin was on wheels! My astonishment quickly turned into rather inappropriately timed and uncontrollable humor, as I immediately recalled childhood jokes about coffins on wheels. I then blasphemously imagined this coffin rolling through the church like a bumper car. By itself. I also developed an unsettling feeling that the inhabitant of the coffin-on-wheels, which was apparently fashioned out of expensive red wood, will rise any second now and join the evening mass. Like Lazarus or a generic zombie. Do clerical living dead abound in horror film culture?
I should ask the vampires.
This one wore what looked like a bishop’s crown and clutched a small bible and a large cross – signs of his ministry - in each hand. His face was concealed by a cloth, which was periodically removed by the parish members, who evidently arrived to pay their tribute by kissing his forehead and his hand. Did they know him personally, or was this another sign of their fanatic devotion, which usually includes slobbering all over every icon in sight, expensive candles, high intensity workouts consisting of the sign of the cross and ground-level bows on repeat, and last but not least – actively correcting every individual in their path who allegedly fails to follow the ritual impeccably.
“We are not that different”, - I tried to convince myself. “I am here to light a candle for a two-dimensional depiction of my guardian saint, while they kiss the old dead man’s hands as if they were relics, and relics belong to saints.”
Most relics of interest are also several hundred years old. So how long has this deceased been inside the church? One day? Two? Three?!
Despite the absence of electric lighting, I stood close enough to notice how rigid and frozen the man’s hands appeared as he grasped his insignia.
I then recalled my last year’s visit to the touring Body Worlds II exhibition of the works created by German “plastinator” Gunter von Hagens. It was not the artfully dismembered corpses, including a female with a five-month old fetus inside her eviscerated womb, or the ability to see certain specimen’s real faces that disturbed me. It was their hands. Waxy complexion with shrunken skin to reveal long, yellowish, chipped fingernails. Precisely like the lifeless cleric’s hands. The hands that zealous churchgoers were currently slobbering over - transferring living saliva drops to the tiny dead gray hairs protruding from the cleric’s fingers and in turn ingesting dead man’s arid epithelials mixed with previously deposited fanatical spit.
Perhaps those jokes about coffins-on-wheels were not jokes? Perhaps they were stories meant to scare children!
Flickering candlelight’s mystical accents on the gold-plated iconostasis and the otherwordly liturgical songs I usually live for now seemed ominous and a suitable counterpart to this ritual of death. Suddenly, the entire scene turned into a vision of Bosch’s Ghent version of Christ Carrying the Cross: an endless horde of mad bulging eyes, oily gangrenous flesh, greasy hair, putrid teeth, with no room left to breathe.
I could not breathe either. I dashed toward the exist near the south wall, receiving mob’s disapproval along the way despite my clear effort to tippy toe, made an even quicker apologetically distorted sign of the cross as my eyes met Saint Nina, and hopped down the stairs out into the cold winter night.
Saint Nina did not seem to mind my escape. Her expression even appeared indifferent, but she was probably just preoccupied with overseeing the cleric’s lengthy entrance into the next world.
Next time I will visit her on an “off” day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)