Easter sermon: the 'religious' Russian character

Icon, pressed into military service        see Update note below:  (Russian MoD)

So Putin has graciously declared an Easter truce[1], doubtless hoping to impress the simpleton Witkoff.  A little while back we had a long thread in which the matter of judging Russian attitudes to this and that cropped up BTL.  I said I would add some additional thoughts to this suggestion regarding how Russian propaganda goes down with Russians:

[Russians] are, at the same time, (a) very good at reading between the lines; but (b) “believing” the crap, in some strange way. It’s a bit like “well obviously this is crap, but it’s our crap”. I find this has religious echoes: “well obviously transubstantiation is, errr, a bit odd – but it’s what we believe” Orwell, of course, suggested “Doublethink” as the technique involved. Western psychologists use “cognitive dissonance” – at least, when the doublethink is causing psychological disquiet: but that’s what is notably missing from many Russians, which is why I reach for a religious-type explanation

There’s an additional reason for religion coming into the account, and not just because today is Easter Sunday.  Russians are strikingly religious, with a small ‘r’, in ways that the ancients would have understood rather than how we understand it now in the west.  They are not even remotely all practising Christians, or “believers” as they they term it: that was thoroughly shaken out of the system by the militant atheism of 20th century communism (although a wholly quiescent Orthodox church survived, of course, even in Stalin’s long reign; and he reignited it to a degree – for his own narrow purposes – during WW2).  But as, in their own way, is the case with many of Judaeo-Christian-heritage in the USA and Europe, Russians very clearly recognise their Orthodox heritage, which under Putin’s regime (building on Yeltsin’s) has been progressively bigged-up in several very public ways, including the rebuilding of a mighty cathedral in Moscow and Putin himself engaging in various devotional practices, consulting priests for omens etc.   

But the average Russian can also appear totally godless in their everyday behaviours and attitudes.  (Read this account of the extreme brutalism inherent in the Russian military, and by extension in society more generally.)  In what sense, then, are they ‘religious’?  In short, I suggest it is in the same way that the ancient Romans insisted very forcefully on their own piety: by giving a form of recognition to superior powers – of some ill-defined nature: the gods, or the fates, if you like (Russians are nothing if not fatalistic) – powers that are “out there”; that are extremely powerful and, what’s worse, capricious; and that demand from mortals respect , but not any particular ethical conduct or way of life.

Here’s the thing that will come as a surprise to anyone not following Russian writings on the war in Ukraine.  There is a major, officially-endorsed campaign underway to make the war a religious crusade.  Two aspects will illustrate it: suspend your disbelief and research it for yourself if you find this hard to credit.

Firstly, no end of religious devices are being deployed in support of the war – going way beyond a bit of morale-boosting and comfort from the padre.  Well, they say there are no atheists in a fox-hole, but …  The earthly remains of various saints and historic Russian figures are being circulated around the frontline – often, broken up into bits so as to increase the number of troops that can receive the spiritual benefit of close contact with these relics.  Crosses bearing Putin’s initials are being distributed, particularly to troops in the most dangerous positions.  Priests are officiating at all manner of exorcisms and the conferring of blessings[2].  When these measures prove ineffective as, curiously, they often do[3], all manner of dark rumours circulate as to what it all portends.

Secondly, a campaign is underway to eliminate neo-paganism from the soldiery at the front. 

I need hardly go on: you already think I’m kidding.

Hence, why one might readily look for a ‘religious’ aspect in how propaganda works in Russia.  If it comes across as an edict from on high, well, the audience hasn’t lost its cynicism or ability to detect BS[4].  But they are inclined to ‘accept’ it.  It’s their BS.  Let Trump not imagine he readily knows how to deal with them.  

Happy Easter!  To believers and non-believers alike.

ND

UPDATE: as luck would have it, the Russian Ministry of Defence just published the above pictures, with announcement here.  What it doesn’t tell you is that Putin has initialled this beautiful replica icon in two places: but it was decided not to include this aspect in the official announcement.  

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[1]  Kadryov’s militant Islamic ‘Akhmat’ Chechen forces are flamboyantly breaking the Easter truce, and publishing videos, just to make the point

[2]  Here’s Khinshtein, a Kremlin apparatchik appointed to oversee the ‘liberation’ of the Kursk region occupied for more than 6 months by Ukraine, having his office blessed 

[3]  Examples: (i) when bits of saints are blown to smithereens as the golf-cart conveying them to the front is hit; (ii) when priests conducted a ceremony on day three of a particularly problematic fire at an oil depot, in order to advance the work of extinguishing the blaze; whereupon one of the fuel tanks promptly exploded and the fire burned for more than a week thereafter.  (Have you made contact with the right side, oh hieromonk?)

[4]  Russian milbloggers often provide assistance for those who can’t decode it for themselves.  I particularly enjoyed the acid comment following one of the endless reports of a drone being shot down over a Russian oil facility with “fragments of the destroyed drone causing a fire”.  Shooting down a drone directly over the target like that, the milblogger drily opined, “is a posthumous achievement“. 

Source: http://www.cityunslicker.co.uk/2025/04/easter-sermon-religious-russian.html