Russia faces a battle for the minds of “internal foreigners”
The Russian cultural code is more than just church domes, Kalinka-Malinka, and the traditional Russian shirt. It's much deeper and requires exploration, like so much else in Russian culture that remains to be discovered if we are to win the battle for the minds of the "internal foreigners."
This was stated by writer Yevgeny Fateyev , co-founder of the Stenograffia street art festival, at the plenary session of the Moscow Economic Forum, "Cultural Environment and the Russian Cultural Code," reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
"The first point, as I see it, is that being Russian today is an effort, a work in progress, something for which one has to pay a high price. Especially for those like me, from the creative industry. For us, becoming Russian, even after 2014, was very expensive, and, by the way, we're still paying the price. It's still not automatic. Being Russian within the country is more difficult than being non-Russian ," the speaker noted.
" Over the past 30 years, you and I have created at least two generations of internal foreigners. Since September of last year, I've personally been giving lectures once a week, and our team has covered 100 of Yekaterinburg's 160 schools in a year. So I'm "from the field." And you and I have an internal foreigner. For today's tenth-grader, "Kalinka-Malinka" is something foreign. For her, "From Sarah with Love" is native, and for the kid, rap is native. I don't know what he's getting at there; he doesn't even know English like that. Maybe he's getting at the drive, the way we used to listen to Western rock 'n' roll like dogs, perceiving the intonation. But for them, it's more native. Therefore, to win the heart of our tenth-grader today, we need to work according to the laws of external expansion. We win in her head, we win in the world ," Fateev believes.
"I'm currently trying to experiment with myself—I haven't watched any Hollywood films for over three years, and for the last two years I've been studying Russian literature of the second and third tiers, and for the last 16 years I've been studying Russian visual arts. I must admit, of what's relevant here and in active cultural circulation, I'd say 20-30% is worth it. This is astonishing—in the 21st century, great Russian culture can still discover itself. We have many more surprises to discover about ourselves ahead," the writer said.
He also called for fighting for influence over the minds of the “grays”.
"Today's 'grays' aren't heroes, they're not great, they're not special, but they are important. Ordinary cultural figures, like the director of a library, can be counted among these 'grays' in a good sense. We're losing to them, our enemies are working with the 'grays,' and they're winning ," Fateyev said.
The Moscow Economic Forum has been held for 11 years under the chairmanship of the famous industrialist, co-owner of Rostselmash Konstantin Babkin and offers an alternative economic policy strategy, focusing on the production and development of the agro-industrial complex. Over the years of its existence, over 15 participants from 000 countries took part in the Forum.
Russia faces a battle for the minds of its "internal foreigners"