One of the problems stems from the persecution and aggressive de-Christianization of the Soviet period. The Church is short of everything, and the large-scale construction and restoration of church buildings represents only a portion of the most visible part of its needs. At times the Church seems to operate as a missionary establishment rather than one that recently celebrated a thousand years of its existence. Another complex problem is that of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in newly independent states, such as Ukraine and the Baltic republics. Within the Church there exists a strong and extreme Right wing, characterized among its other qualities by anti-Westernism, anti-Semitism, and isolationism, and headed until his death in 1995 by the second-ranking hierarch of the Church, the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg John. Patriarch Alexis II managed to contain Metropolitan John and his followers and to continue a rather moderate and flexible policy, but the issue between the two points of view has by no means been resolved. There were also problems in relations with the state. As already mentioned, Yeltsin, his government, and most other politicians treated the Church very favorably. Yet the state remained secular, while the Church wanted to play a greater role in education and in general to have Orthodoxy recognized more formally and fully as the religion of Russia. On September 19, 1997, the Duma passed a revised version of what has been described as a religious protection bill, passed soon after unanimously by the Federation Council and signed by Yeltsin, which declared Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism as the established religions of Russia, and made it more difficult for other religious groups to operate in the country, especially where they had not been previously entrenched over a period of time. Enjoying vast popular support as a proper measure against evangelical Christians, as well as Mormons, Hare Krishnas, and other religious groups which seemed to have flooded Russia in
search of converts after the fall of communism, the bill was internationally denounced as an infraction of the freedom of religion. Its application in practice has been and will be watched closely in many quarters.
It is too early to discuss with any degree of finality and even precision the structure of post-communist Russian culture or its defining traits. One can only mention the immediate impact of the collapse of communism as sweeping in its own way in culture as in politics, economics or foreign policy. Marxism-Leninism disappeared from sight - whatever its underground residue - both as a massive presence in schools and other academic institutions and as the guiding doctrine there and everywhere else. Its teachers turned to more traditional philosophy or history, or switched professions. Instead Russia became immediately open to every conceivable idea and doctrine, with Russian intellectuals reveling in the latest Western views and teachings, but also in the accomplishments of their own Silver Age, continued in emigration by such philosophers as Nicholas Berdiaev. Unfortunately, the new intellectual richness coincided with a diminishing support from the state and general economic decline and even disaster.
In literature, too, of course, old structures, prescriptions, and controls vanished. Regrettably, so did state support. Some observers were disappointed that priceless novels did not appear from their places of hiding once communism had collapsed. But then there was only one Tolstoy and one Dostoevsky. More generally Russian intellectuals complained that once unrestricted commercialism prevailed, the public went after pornography or simply trash, while poets and other writers lost their former positions as centers of attention and inspiration to everything from television to comics. Yet few of them would prefer a return to the former programmed and closed society. Indeed, today Russian literature is already varied, interesting, and rich, and its future looks bright, especially if it is granted a modicum of political stability and economic support. Musicians and other artists have been in a position similar to that of writers, although perhaps favored by their proclivity to travel and by the fact that their languages need no translators.
An interesting phenomenon during the Yeltsin years has been the return of dissenters and other emigres for a visit, a few performances, or more permanently. Many will never forget Vladimir Horowitz in St. Petersburg playing the piano in the very hall where he began his professional career, or - certainly the most celebrated returner and return of all - Alexander Solzhenitsyn coming back to his native land in the summer of 1994 to denounce at close range the new Russia, as he had so effectively denounced its Soviet predecessor.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alliluyeva, Svetlana Isosifovna (1926-) Stalin's daughter. Works include Twenty Letters to a Friend.
Armstrong, John A. (1922-) American political scientist. Works include The Politics of Totalitarianism: The Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1934 to the Present; The Soviet Bureaucratic Elite: A Case Study of the Ukrainian Apparatus; Ukrainian Nationalism, 1939-1945; The European Administrative Elite; Ideology, Politics and Government in the Soviet Union; Nations before Nationalism.
Baumgarten, Nicolas Pierre Serge von (1887-1939) Russian historian. Works include "Aux origines de la Russie," Orientalia Christiana Analecta 119 (1939); "Chronologie ecclesiastique des terres russes du Xe au XIIIe siecle," Orientalia Christiana (January 1930); "Genealogies des branches regnantes des Rurikides russes du XIIIe au XVIe siecle," Orientalia Christiana (June 1934); "Genealogies et mariages occidentaux des Rurikides russes du Xe au XIIIe siecle," Orientalia Christiana (May 1927).
Bayer, Gottlieb Siegfried (1694-1738) German historian who worked in Russia under Empress Anne. Works include De Russorum prima expeditione Constantinopolitana; De Varagis; Geographia Russiae… ex Constantino Porphyrogenneta; Geographia Russiae ex Scriptoribus Septentrionalibus; Origines Russicae.
Baykov, Alexander (1899-) Russian-British economist. Works include The Development of the Soviet Economic System: An Essay on the Experience of Planning in the USSR; Soviet Foreign Trade.
Berdiaev, Nikolai Aleksandrovich (1878-1948) Russian cultural philosopher. Works include Istoki i smysl russkogo kommunizma (The Origin of Russian Communism); The Russian Revolution: Two Essays on its Implications in Religion and Psychology; Russkaia ideia: Osnovnye problemy russkoi mysli XIX veka i nachala XX veka {The Russian Idea).
Bereday, George Z. F. (1920-) American specialist on Soviet education. Works include The Changing Soviet Schooclass="underline" The Comparative Education Society Field Study in the U.S.S.R. (ed. with William W. Brickman and Gerald H. Read); The Politics of Soviet Education (ed. with Jaan Pennar); "Education: Organization and Values since 1917," in Transformation of Russian Society (ed. ?. ?. Black).