Director of Institute for USA and Canada Studies – Moscow
An Example of Courage in the Face of a Run-Away Sick Totalitarian Sect Mentality in Russia.
A timeline with original documents and links.
1. On August 29, 2023 Valery Garbuzov published a political essay about Russia’s “post-imperial syndrome” and the Putin regime’s reliance on anti-American myths. Here it the article, a very fine read:
“Lost Illusions of the Bygone Era – Russia needs knowledge, not myths, for self-knowledge”
2. On August 30, 2023 the Russian state media responded with anger to this essay. They read Garbuzov’s essay as an indictment. Pundit Vladimir Solovyov has been particularly vocal in his anger response, see for example: “Evening with Solvyov. Naivity of Ukraine. August 30, 2023.” Use Wayback machine if you have trouble accessing the above link at smotrim.ru.
3. On September 1, 2023 Garbuzov was replaced as the director of the Institute of U.S. and Candada studies by Sergey Kislitsyn, the 33-year-old head of the Center for the Study of Strategic Planning at the National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations. The press service of the Institute connects the replacement of Garbuzov by Kislitsyn to the publication of the article.
4. On September 5, 2023 the institute’s faculty issued a public statement in Garbuzov’s defense. This was published also in Nezavisimaya Gazeta and quickly unpublished afterwards. Here is an archived copy of the text: Protest letter by Faculty of Institute
5. Also on September 5 Garbuzov published a response to the angry smear campaign of the state media in Russia: A sudden storm out of nowhere
6. On September 6 Solovyov talks about the reponses from the faculty and Garbuzov in his morning program. He now proposes to close the whole institute. He rejects being compared to Goebbels and immediatetly goes to share some big lies about a non-existing Huli documentary. Video link: Morning talk show of Solovyov – Sept 6.
Some key moments of the show here:
Here he reads a message online that alerts him to the fact that he is spreading fake news about the non-existing documentary. Interesting – does he really now know this?
One of the many interesting insights from the article of Garbuzov is a precursor for the current political nightmare that Russia constitutes: Sergey Uvarov – see below.
Sergey Uvarov
Quote from wikipedia article on Sergey Uvarov:
Uvarov was responsible for coming up with the formula “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality“, the basis of his activities regarding public education. According to Uvarov’s theory, the Russian folk (narod) is very religious and devoted to the Emperor, so the Orthodox religion and Autocracy are unconditional bases of the existence of Russia. Nationality (narodnost) is deemed to be the necessity to follow independent national traditions and to fight foreign influence. The theory stated that it was necessary to reject western ideas – freedom of thought, freedom of personality, individualism, rationalism which were considered by Orthodox religion as dangerous and rebel thinking. The chief of Russian political police (the Third Section of His Majesty Personal Chancellery) Alexander von Benckendorff wrote that “the past of Russia was wonderful, the present is splendid and the future is above all dreams”. These three concepts were considered as “pillar-walls” of the Russian Empire. He worked to limit access to education by people of non-noble origin and strengthening governmental control over the universities and gymnasiums, once famously remarking, “No university Pugachevs.” It means that only a small part of Russian population (only noble ones, many of them of foreign descent) had the possibility to get the education; it was almost impossible for Russian non-nobles (raznochynets) to get access to education. Within this meaning, the Narodnost (Nationality) meant that Russian folk had to stay away from education (Western influence) in order to preserve the folks’ pure Russian national character.
Also Meduza reported on this case here.