Unrecoverable breaks
Kamil Galeev is one of the most interesting commentators on modern Russian culture, and from my perspective, one of the most spot on. Vexingly he communicates long form essays via Twitter threads, but it’s still worth the hassle.
Consider these two threads:
- Tatar (and other Islamic cultures within the Russian Empire) are part of the greater Persianate world. By breaking the linguistic bonds to Persian and Arabic, Russia and the Soviet Union destroyed any meaningful connection with previous culture. [thread]
- Cultural homogeneity over vast areas always comes about by force. There used to be indigenous, heterogeneous Orthodox traditions around Russia, but first the imperial authorities, later the USSR wiped them out. The ‘revival’ of the Orthodox Church in post-Soviet Russia is something along the lines of Disney Land — it’s fake, with no connection to any deeper historical tradition. [thread]
I’ve previously written a long rambling post about the inauthenticity of religious conversion, namely that say a Westerner can’t truly adopt Hinduism or Buddhism on some level.
These breaks with the past and the impossibility of authentic revivals are relevant. For instance, traditional Chinese culture, with the exception of Taiwan is all but dead thanks to Mao. Boarding schools and similar policies in the US, Canada and Australia give indigenous people almost no chance at reclaiming their culture.
I suppose I’m not so bleak. There probably are authentic revivals, not the gaudy Russian Orthodox churches erected in the past three decades, but the new tradition is always something different than the original.
Mentorship inside a living tradition and cultural exchange can’t be replaced with books and archeology.