Alexei Nagovitsyn: Everything in Russia is organized in a natural way. Businessman Nagovitsyn started construction for the SCO summit, but the authorities do not really need it

Nagovitsyn A.E. Mythology and religion of the Etruscans. M., 2000

INSTEAD OF FOREWORD

The book offered to the reader reflects one of the many interests of the young Russian scientist.

A. E. Nagovitsyn - PhD in Psychology, senior researcher at the State Research Institute of Family and Education of the Russian Academy of Education. Obviously, Alexei Evgenievich Nagovitsyn will soon become famous in various spheres of our culture.

A recognized researcher in the field of educational psychology, he is more actively developing the field of historical psychology.

An excellent erudite in history and mythology, Alexei Evgenievich is immersed in the world of folk culture not only as a theorist, but also as a well-known folk healer and organizer of traditional Russian rituals. Sincere passion and energy, multiplied by deep knowledge and a sense of folk culture - all this makes the author of this book a unique figure in Russian culture.

One of the complex, but successfully implemented A.E. Nagovitsyn spheres of activity is the study of the psychological and semantic basis of the sounds of human speech. In this part of his interests, Aleksey Evgenievich obtained, perhaps, the most striking results, which, by the way, were used in writing this book. Of great interest is the fact that in the reconstruction of the rites and mysteries of the ancient Etruscans, Alexei Evgenievich used the methods of both historical and psychological sciences, which allowed him to largely reconstruct the mentality of this era. We can believe that he managed to reveal the deep meaning of the basic sounds of our speech, a meaning common to all languages. However, his new books will be written about it.

This monograph was the result of the author's close interest in the ancient people of the Etruscans, the forerunner of the Roman Empire. The fate of the Etruscans excites the author with the similarity with the fate of the Russian people - the eternal experimenter in the field of their spiritual culture.

I think that this book will attract the interest of both the general reader and specialists in the field of the history of the Ancient World. I hope that the latter will supplement it with their critical professional analysis.

doctor of psychological sciences, professor V.K. Shabelnikov

In the study of A.E. Nagovitsyn considers the most interesting scientific problem of the relationship of Etruscan culture with the cultures of other Indo-European peoples. The method used by the author in his research is of interest: the author made a rather rare attempt to investigate the spiritual life of the Etruscans, as it were, from within the Etruscan society itself, using the methods of the emerging science of historical psychology. With this approach, the author's analysis of a number of rites and traditions of ancient Etruria, especially funeral rites, acquires special value.

I would like to point out the high erudition of the author in the issue he is considering. Nagovitsyn A.E. managed to give a complete and objective description of the traditional religious life of the Etruscan society. I would also like to emphasize the abundance and completeness of the factual and illustrative material.

Many of the conclusions of the author of the book are quite debatable. This is explained by the fact that in historical science there is a very wide divergence of opinions on many issues considered in the work of A.E. Nagovitsyn. This objective difficulty is compensated by the completeness of the exposition and a special historical and psychological approach, which enable the reader to get a fairly adequate idea of ​​many aspects of the problem under study.

Of particular interest is the consideration of the cultural transition from the Etruscan civilization to the ancient Roman one. The historical and cultural study of the situation of continuity and change of cultures is relevant at the present time, when Russian society is moving to a new historical stage of its existence and is closely interacting with Western culture.

The work is an interesting and valuable historical and psychological study.

Candidate of Historical Sciences A.M. Smorchkov

In recent years, interest in the Etruscans has increased in our country. The reason was that a number of authors published in popular science publications pointed to a fairly close cultural connection between the Etruscans (self-name - Rassen) and the Russian people.

The psychological reasons for the public interest that arose in response to the emergence of this idea are quite clear. For a long time, the prevailing view in scientific circles was that "we Russians are a young nation." According to established views, Russian history was presented as a series of foreign influences; it has become the norm to see borrowing in any manifestation of national culture; the mocking saying "Russia is the birthplace of elephants" has become a good tone. Russophobia has passed from scientific circles to the broad masses - remember how strangely the meaning of the word "patriot" has been distorted today.

No wonder that on this basis a national inferiority complex was formed, there was an infringement of one of the normal human needs - the need to be proud of one's own ancestors. It is no wonder that the opportunity to find "close relatives" in the person of the ancient and "respectable" Etruscans evokes a lively response from many.

Naturally, as always, when something is based on infringement and pain, the "search for relatives" is not always correct. In the problem of "Etruscans-Russians" at the moment there are two extreme opinions. On the one hand, enthusiasts come to the absolute identification of the two peoples, taking quite seriously the amusing formula "Etruscans are Russians!" Evidence is ignored, the sound coincidence of the names of the two peoples is considered self-sufficient. The "professionals" who are at the opposite pole squeamishly twist their lips and once again say something about the "homeland of elephants"; Unfortunately, the camp of "professionals" is often far from trying to understand the problem (why, if everything has long been known).

Book by A.E. Nagovitsyn is, perhaps, the first attempt to consider the problem, based not on emotions and ambitions, but on facts. The author's conclusion is simple and logical. Of course, there is no need to talk about the identity of the two peoples - Russians and Etruscans. But at the same time, both cultures have many common features - the names and attributes of gods, rituals, religious and philosophical views. The reason for this similarity is the common Indo-European roots of the two peoples.

The simple idea of ​​the unity of roots and, as a result, the similarity of cultures, unfortunately, is not clear to all researchers. As we have already said, many scientists, seeing the coincidence of certain elements of cultures, begin to suspect borrowing; there is another extreme - the very possibility of the existence of a certain cultural phenomenon among the people, even if it is present among many surrounding kindred peoples, is denied. Such a bias is very unfortunate, since, by correctly using the method of comparison, one can achieve the most important goal - the reconstruction of elements that have not been preserved in a particular culture (in the case of interest to us, among the Slavs).

And "coincidences" when reading the book by A.E. Nagovitsin comes to light very much (by the way, not all of them the author specifies). For example, I was very interested in the description of the sacred organization of the Etruscan cities. Conducting research on the sacred construction of Moscow, I was very satisfied to find confirmation of some of my assumptions in the Etruscan material.

"Own" in the book by A.E. Nagovitsyn will be found by readers with various predilections. Intellectuals (historians, culturologists, religious scholars) will find here abundant factual material and many reasons for reflection. Fans of "fantasy" with a benevolent reading will find a lot of "goodies" in the book (what is worth, for example, the description of hunting with the help of music - truly, the reality of the world is often more amazing than a possible fiction). Those who are interested in "esoteric" topics will not remain in the loser either.

Candidate of Psychological Sciences. The theme of the dissertation is the rhythmic phonetic influence and its use in teaching. Sphere of scientific interests (besides mythology) - sound analysis of language; in particular, A.E. Nagovitsyn pays attention to traditional "influencing" forms - sacred texts, mythological phonemes, poetry.

"Unscientific" creative interests of A.E. Nagovitsyn are extremely wide. I would especially like to note him as a bone sculptor.

Of course, much in the book can cause disagreement. I confess that I myself broke more than one pair of spears in disputes with Alexei Evgenievich. However, such controversy is a normal phenomenon, because any scientific work is not the final truth, but only a replica in an endless dialogue.

The remark of Alexei Evgenievich Nagovitsyn was delivered.

D. V. Gromov, executive editor of the almanac "Myths and magic of the Indo-Europeans"

https://www.site/2017-02-02/biznesmen_nagovicyn_nachal_stroyku_k_sammitu_shos_no_vlastyam_ona_ne_osobo_nuzhna

Spare congress hall

Businessman Nagovitsyn started construction for the SCO summit, but the authorities do not really need it

Alexey Nagovitsyn showed his project only to the participants of the meeting with the governor press service of the governor of the Chelyabinsk region

Chelyabinsk is actively discussing the latest news related to the preparations for possible SCO and BRICS summits. Businessman Alexei Nagovitsyn presented to Governor Boris Dubrovsky and his subordinates a project for a congress hall that he can build on Truda Street between the Radisson hotels and the Gagarin Park shopping center (owned by Nagovitsyn). Work on the site intensified back in November last year, when equipment entered the territory and preparations for construction began. Frankly little is known about the project, since so far all the sketches and documentation are with the developer, and Aleksey Nagovitsyn refuses to communicate with journalists.

The meeting on the preparation of facilities for the SCO and BRICS summits, which was held on January 31 by Governor Boris Dubrovsky, raised a lot of questions, the main of which was where did the congress hall project on the embankment go, which won the Archchel-2020 competition and which was promised to be used in preparation for the summits .

A public and business center will be built on the embankment. This project has not been canceled, now the investor is being selected. We need such an object.

However, if the facility is built, then, of course, part of the events will take place there as well.”

The site on Truda Street has been empty for a long time. Ever since the 2000s, it was reported that a certain sports facility would be built there. Then they wanted to place a Hilton hotel here. However, traffic on the site began only at the end of last year, but it was not clear what they were going to build there. It is not clear even now - the project of the congress hall, as they say in the administration of Chelyabinsk, is only in the hands of Alexei Nagovitsyn. "He showed it at a meeting with the governor, but did not give it to anyone," the mayor's office said. They also said that the project itself had already received approval, the only thing was that Nagovitsyn was asked to refine the colors so that the new object would be in harmony with neighboring buildings.

Nail Fattakhov

At the same time, market players express doubts that the congress hall will still appear in this place. “The construction of such an object with an area of ​​50 thousand square meters requires at least 5 billion rubles, but depending on the project, the volume of investments can reach up to 10 billion,” says one of the Chelyabinsk businessmen. “If summit events are to be held here, then the facility definitely should not look like a barn.”

According to a source familiar with the course of negotiations between Alexei Nagovitsyn and officials, in November-December last year, the businessman asked the authorities for guarantees: in order to build an expensive facility, he is supposed to have to take out a loan secured by his real estate and property, and, of course, he it was necessary to understand how he would "beat off" the invested funds. “However, at that time he did not receive any concrete answer from the authorities,” our source says.

“Seriously discussing such an object is like discussing a water park in Kopeysk,” says a representative of Chelyabinsk business circles. - In my opinion, the investor himself does not understand what he is building and why. Perhaps wants to find a concept in the process. But this is the wrong approach. A serious investor will not do anything for a specific SCO, this is, of course, an important factor, but no one will do anything for its sake. You need to understand how the project will pay off. If we take the congress center as the core, then I'm not sure that Chelyabinsk needs it. In Yekaterinburg, such an object would be in demand. We do not have. In general, now monoconcepts do not work. The object must be multifaceted, with a complex structure. For example, you created a congress hall, attracted a lot of people to this public space, and you already earn money with the help of catering or hotel services. But I did not see these ideas in the project. If the object appears in the form in which it was presented, then it will work more for the neighboring Radisson hotel than for the owner. In general, a certain suddenness and urgency is visible in all this. Such projects are not done spontaneously, they take a long time to develop, there is always an anchor tenant, partners who can enter the project in one video or another. We don't see any of that here. Who will manage the congress hall, who will be located there, etc., this is nothing. If it were, then everyone in the market would know about it.”

Nail Fattakhov

According to the expert, it makes no sense to transfer the object in this place to a shopping and entertainment complex due to the proximity of the Rodnik shopping mall, which seriously takes away traffic from the same Gagarin Park and the Molniya shopping center located across the road.

Alexey Nagovitsyn owns the Gagarin Park shopping mall and the Kalibr shopping mall. He got into the public sphere only about scandalous situations related to conflicts with tenants at Caliber, the eviction of a furniture production workshop from the enterprise’s territory, and litigation over the land under Gagarin Park. However, Nagovitsyn, who received assets under Mayor Vyacheslav Tarasov, emerged victorious from all court conflicts.

In a conversation with a psychologist, philosopher and culturologist, author of studies of traditional beliefs of various peoples, monographs and textbooks on psychology Alexei Nagovitsyn, we talked about the unity of roots and the similarity of different cultures, about the process of their destruction and revival.

Aleksei Evgenievich, why are they suddenly talking about the infringement of the Russian people in Russia? How can a numerically dominant nation complain of oppression by small peoples?

A.N.: There are a number of reasons for this. In Russia, as in a number of other countries, including America and China, the inherent spirit of community has been destroyed, which has been replaced by corporatism, that is, a priority based on connection with the place of work. Thus, the current level of civilization assumes that a person is controlled by some kind of master and follows goals that he does not understand, weakening the kinship of a spiritual, national, tribal, religious order.

In addition, the existing de facto, infringing and insulting actions against Russians by small peoples are most often hushed up and ignored by the authorities, while Russian nationalism is openly ostracized. As a result, there is a bias, to which Russian citizens react painfully.

Spiritual unity in our time is difficult to find both at the state and at the national level. True, some progress in this direction appears. For example, when young people enter the army, and a community is formed there. "Where are you from?" “But we are Tula, and we are from the Caucasus, and we are Muscovites…”, etc., and they are united by regional or national associations, but this is not the case in the country as a whole, except for some national diasporas.

Look, now people have nothing to do with anyone. Residents of the same entrance do not greet each other. A person often does not know who lives with him on the landing. At the same time, the individualization of personal life enhances spiritual callousness: why hurt the soul about someone you don’t know? However, this process has another side: immersion in oneself sometimes provokes an increase in envy, not only as a personal characteristic, but also as a social and group one.

From a country with an atheistic ideology, we moved to a secular state in which the Constitution proclaims freedom of conscience and religion. However, in real life we ​​see the same struggle now with different religious movements, with sectarianism?

A.N.: Sects have been fought at all times. The same inquisition, the royal or tsarist authorities of different countries, the Stalinist regime, the regime of Mao Zedong or the Nazi regime in Germany - it does not matter. This struggle, in fact, is not against sectarianism, but against any associations. Sectarianism simply looks brighter against the background of other formations, that's the whole difference.

In Russia, after the revolution, even philosophical circles were persecuted, which in essence were completely harmless to the ruling strata of the state. And who was hindered by the circles of the followers of Helena Blavatsky? What Helena Petrovna Blavatsky was talking about had nothing to do with power or anything else dangerous for the state, but the participants in these circles were imprisoned, as if they were united on some spiritual basis.

Entire literary associations were arrested. Almost all the bright representatives of the "Silver Age" either left Russia or were imprisoned. The same Mandelstam was persecuted, first of all, not because he wrote an abusive poem against Stalin, but because people grouped around him. For the same reason, Nikolai Gumilyov was shot, although he was formally accused of some kind of conspiracy. Gorky came to ask Lenin for him, but to no avail. But Gumilyov, after all, supported the Soviet government, and he had no reason to participate in conspiracies, but people grouped around him - the great poet. Hence the series of sudden deaths: Mayakovsky, Yesenin and others, because people also gathered around them.

The issue of the persecution of sectarians in Russia, although important, does not play a leading role. It's just that their pursuit sounds louder. The only fundamental difference between associations around writers and sectarianism is that the group around Gumilev, Kharms, Pasternak, Mandelstam and other writers actually perishes after the death of their leader. And religious currents, which are called sectarianism, do not disappear in similar cases. They are more tenacious and able to bring out a new spiritual leader from their depths. This is due to the nature of the organization. That is why the authorities pay more attention to them.

It is a stretch to talk about the revival of religiosity in contemporary Russia. At the heart of Christianity in pre-revolutionary Russia was a church parish, a church warden, where people helped each other and were connected by social and spiritual kinship relations.

And now religiosity has a formal character and is shown as a tribute to fashion. By strict moral standards, this is not at all spirituality, not at all unification.

It is precisely for the needs of true and sincere unity, spiritual brotherhood, that some religious organizations called "sectarian" gather their flock. But the word “sect” has long been used in our context as abusive, hence another aspect of the controversial attitude towards believers from their composition.

- Now, under the guise of fighting extremists, a "witch hunt" has been going on for more than one year - what is it, a search for new enemies?

A.N.: The persecution is aimed not only at religious, but also at cultural and philosophical organizations. Note, precisely those that imply spiritual unity. This is already a historically proven thing, practiced by any totalitarian regime, when an association based on something not sanctioned by the authorities a priori is considered to be opposed to the state. And it doesn't matter what it is: a club of philatelists or butterfly lovers - if they are united, then hypothetically they can act as an opposition.

- Maybe it's just beneficial for someone, affects someone's interests?

A.N.: And I will say that it is beneficial for the state. People who are spiritually or otherwise united can, at some point, at least theoretically, stand up against the dominant ideology.

We know well what the destruction of the connection between people is fraught with. This can be seen in the United States of America, where a child can put his parents in jail for being slapped on the bottom. In the United States, some marriages are temporary, under an agreement.

Even a person with money, but not having internal, spiritual or family, blood, tribal, compatriot ties, is defenseless before any political judicial system. If the system is profitable, then there is no one to intercede for him. Well, journalists will shout for three days, creating a sensation, but this will not affect the people in any way. That is why, as a rule, no one touches journalists, they do not interfere with their work, thereby forcing them to create some kind of illusion of democracy.

How did the problems of social inequality develop into national squabbles? Why in their minds most people do not feel belonging to a single community - the Russians?

A.N.: I don’t know what “Russians” are. I do not consider myself identical with all the peoples inhabiting Russia. We are different, but this does not mean at all that some nationalities are better, others are worse. We can say that a Russian belongs to Russia, but when we talk about a certain national identity, a Russian is not a nationality, it is an belonging to a social structure called a country.

To tell the truth, even today the Russian province, which is usually called the "outback", often receives significantly less assistance from the federal treasury than those regions that once received the unspoken status of "national outskirts".

In addition, at the present time, for well-known financial reasons, employers often prefer to attract guest workers for working specialties, which increases the level of unemployment among the local population. They say that the "locals" do not want to work there, but go and try to get a job as a janitor in Moscow.

- What, in your opinion, did the concept of “Slavic culture” consist of?

A.N.: The very concept of “Slavism” was introduced by the Slavophiles at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, including at the suggestion of Prince Trubetskoy. Slavic culture refers to the union of different peoples. But, for example, Russians are much closer in culture and mentality to the Germans than to the Poles. Not only the Belarusians, that is, the original Slavs, are very close to the Russians, but also the Finno-Ugric peoples, who do not belong to those.

- Can we say that this is a culture introduced from outside?

A.N .: If in the same England the priests, English by origin, collected crumbs of culture, including pagan culture, preserved and copied pre-Christian books, then the Greeks came to Russia from Byzantium, who had a negative attitude towards the Russians, and towards the whole their culture as the culture of their eternal enemies.

In Byzantium, moreover, in those days there was an “overproduction” of priests. With the reduction of territory and spheres of influence, they simply did not have enough temples and other places of service. So all these "extra" priests and monks in Byzantium itself went to Russia.

By the way, the famous Kazakh writer Olzhas Suleimenov in the book “AZ and I” describes how one figure from the Orthodox Greek monks, later ranked as blessed, boasted that he personally erased more than 10 thousand books and manuscripts from ancient Russian parchments and wrote on all of them “ Our Father".

And nowadays it happens that "Russian cranberry" replaces the true culture of the people. The Khotkovo artistic craft of Russian bone carving disappeared, in the neglect of the tradition of goose-crystal glass and crystal, the Bogorodsk toy practically disappeared, lacquer miniatures of Palekh, Mstera, Fedoskina, Kholuy lost their originality in many respects and became indistinguishable from each other, sign painted trays practically disappeared etc.

Or take the same Cyril and Methodius, who are considered to be the founders of Slavic writing. According to their own recollections, they adopted the Slavic alphabet from a certain Slav from Chersonese and added only a few letters (for example, fitu) that were needed to pronounce and write church terms that were not in Russian. And, nevertheless, they are recognized as the founders of Russian writing. Monuments are built to them, memorable days and holidays are celebrated, although the same Glagolitic alphabet existed several centuries before their birth, as evidenced by the inscriptions on the walls of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.

Writing in Russia existed long before Cyril and Methodius, but the church claims that it was introduced by them.

- It turns out that Russian culture has been destroyed since antiquity?

A.N.: Russia was destroyed by its enemies. This is typical for any state and people from its enemies. However, starting from the communist period, it was destroyed, first of all, by representatives of some non-Russian peoples who were part of its ruling and repressive bodies, who, for nationalistic, political or other reasons, wished to weaken the Russian nationality not only in their national regions, but in the Center of Russia. It must be borne in mind that many representatives of the Russian people themselves took a similar position for various egoistic reasons. This approach was in line with the basic policy of the USSR and partly of modern Russia.

The roots of the destructive action of some representatives of foreign peoples against the Russian people lie in the pre-revolutionary policy of the tsarist regime. In particular, Chinese small-scale wholesalers and retailers flooded Russia even before the revolution. Since the end of the 19th century, there have been a lot of them in Moscow and other regions.

Against their dominance, in order to support the national economy and trade, the tsarist government issued a number of decrees, to a certain extent there was a restriction of their activities. By the way, in some Chinese restaurants and other establishments, even in modern Vladivostok, Russians are not allowed at all.

- What do you think can revive the former power of our state, revive the lost culture?

A.N.: There is no need to try to help the Russian people and other peoples from above.

Everything in Russia is organized in a natural way. For many years I have been working with students from different universities, from different regions, different nationalities and religions, and I do not consider us sick. All these are journalistic clichés, most of us have wonderful young people, although, unfortunately, they are rather ignorant ... In the sense that they know less.

I have such an opinion about young people not because I am an optimist. I just see that all social processes are finite in time, and there are certain laws of these processes, including temporary ones, no one needs a separate revival of spirituality within some people or nationality, only for everyone together and at the same time. And if you appoint "revivalists" of culture and morality, then everything that has survived can be destroyed.

Everyone finds their own path to the Christian God, Buddha, Allah, etc.

"Portal- Credo . Ru ": You are acting as a specialist at the trial in the case of Alexander Kalistratov, head of the religious organization Jehovah's Witnesses, in Gorno-Altaisk. Your task is mainly to evaluate those examinations on the basis of which the indictment is built. What could you say about the general level of these examinations?

Alexey Nagovitsyn: I find it difficult to answer this question for the following reason: what is called legal expertise in the case of Alexander Kalistratov is not such. According to all legal norms voiced by the Russian prosecutor's office, this expertise should include a religious studies component. Just linguistic and psychological components are not enough, since the religious text, according to the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation and in accordance with the conclusions from the mass of scientific works, has its own specifics,

The examination was signed by three experts, but if a second-year student brought me such a term paper, I would simply kick him out with "bad luck". Of all the methods declared in the first part of the examination, none was applied. The conclusion is made without any reason.

What types of conclusions are there?

Type 1 - quotes from the Bible are taken, what the quote is about is discarded, and the expert concludes that this is all extremism.

Type 2 - the same is done with a direct retelling of biblical texts - biblical stories are condemned.

3rd type - a large text is taken, quotes necessary for this expert are pulled out of it, everything else is discarded, as a result it turns into a text that can offend someone.

4th type - direct substitution of concepts. When it comes to the first Christians who fled from Jerusalem during its destruction, it is concluded that for some reason this offends Catholics. But the early Christians are the forerunners of all Christian denominations, including Jehovah's Witnesses. And you can not talk about the predominance of one thing.

Type 5 - the expert condemns the whole magazine, which is aimed at protecting the environment, retelling some historical events, protecting health, and presenting many moral and moral standards. But it contains a note on 1/6 of the page, which simply cites a fragment from the official Spanish magazine Vezha, which has nothing to do with Jehovah's Witnesses, a quote that somehow did not please the expert. And he blamed this on Kalistratov, whom the court accuses of distributing harmful literature that causes extremism.

In three magazines out of 48, Kalistratov is accused of quotations that are not there at all.

In the examination, there are absolutely wild things - the description of the fact that after the crucifixion of Christ the Virgin Mary departed from Judaism and converted to Christianity, according to this examination, for some reason offends Christians. It is very difficult to say on what basis such a conclusion is based.

6th type - internally contradictory conclusions, for example, the fact that a certain Anglican priest married two women, for some reason offends Catholics.

I don't know what kind of person you have to be to draw up such an expert opinion. Moreover, I have serious suspicions that two experts, quite respected people, looked through this in passing. There is a young expert there who has just defended his thesis, and he has accumulated a lot of these examinations (I won't give his last name for ethical reasons) in the two years after his defense. And I didn’t see any knowledge from him - not a single method declared in the first part of the examination was applied.

- That is, the examination does not meet the requirements?

- It does not meet any requirements of the examination as such, and is not an examination, it misleads both the prosecution and the court. Phrases taken out of context and sometimes changed, phrases without context, without explanations - you can get anything from them.

I can give an example: the very phrase "Beat the Jews, save Russia!" is disgusting. But if we return to the context, then we get that somewhere by 1914, the sausage makers and butchers of Moscow and St. Petersburg formed a kind of terrorist society "Black Hundred", the slogan of which was the phrase: "Beat the Jews, save Russia!" - and began to arrange Jewish pogroms. This caused a storm of indignation and protests among the entire liberal, democratic-minded intelligentsia and people of Russia. In this context, it is clear that this phrase is condemned, as well as its carriers. But if the phrase itself is taken out of context, then a literary work can be accused of inciting ethnic hatred in the most rude form.

- How realistic is it that the court will fairly objectively assess the level of this expertise?

- The judge is a smart, well-read, calm person. The prosecutor also leaves the impression of an intelligent, well-read person. In this case, I do not know the extent to which this lawsuit was ordered, i.e. by what forces it is all initiated.

The fact that the lawsuit arose on its own is very doubtful. But this is my personal opinion, which I can only express as private.

To what extent can the decision of the Gorno-Altai Court be influenced by the information that has appeared these days that the decision of the European Court of Rights on the registration of the Moscow community of Jehovah's Witnesses has entered into legal force, and Russia's claims have been rejected?

- I can only state this as an assumption, and not as an accusation to anyone: given the inertia of officials as a fact, given that if a thing is ordered, then it goes through a number of instances, which themselves do not always receive information in a timely manner and do not they always react in a timely manner, because the religious machine, if representatives of any confession are somehow tied up here, cannot immediately react. I strongly doubt that if this is a custom process, they will react. If this process is initiated by the local prosecutor's office as an independent prosecutor's office, without any outside pressure, then the chances are very high. Whether there was pressure or not, I don't know. Naturally, I do not have any facts.

- The very practice of these examinations, taken at some completely incomprehensible level (for example, the decision to ban the books of the Muslim theologian Said Nursi was made on the basis of a decree of the Orenburg region) - how expedient is it? Or, perhaps, we need to think that if this decision applies to the whole of Russia, then it should be taken at the level of the Supreme Court of Russia?

- I believe that this practice is illegal, unconstitutional. The fact is that according to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, we do not have case-based justice, therefore a single sentence cannot be transferred to the whole country. But maybe it's getting there.

This issue is now connected with the procedure for inclusion in the register of prohibited literature, and not with the very fact of the trial. The unconstitutional practice concerns precisely the inclusion in the federal register, on the basis of submissions from any local courts, of literature recognized as extremist without examination at the federal level.

Moreover, it is extremely important to say here that for the same literature that is being considered today, there is a huge number of examinations, including those of the European Court, as well as the Ministry of Justice, which recognize it as quite normal and legal. And it is completely incomprehensible why the decision of the expert council of the Ministry of Justice is not the basis for the decision of the republican court of Gorno-Altaisk, but the decision of the expert council from Kemerovo State University, moreover, of people who are clearly not expert experts, is.

There are judicial expert councils in Yekaterinburg, in Bryansk. Along with the expert council of the Ministry of Justice, they also considered this literature, including on the precedents that arose in the subjects of the federations, and the results of the examination were positive. The presence of several positive examinations did not satisfy the local subject of the Russian Federation and for some reason made them turn to Kemerovo State University, which does not have an expert council as such. They just called a certain group of people an expert council.

Blaming the intentions of the publisher of texts on Mr. Kalistratov, who distributes them, is like blaming me for the fact that a volcano erupted in Brazil, because I know about the existence of Brazil.

- In your opinion, what is the meaning of this process?

- In my personal opinion, the meaning of the process is that certain forces, which I do not want to name, are for some reason opposed to Jehovah's Witnesses. Some forces are exerting pressure on regional courts. What are these forces? Again, this is not my question.

Another reason for the prosecution of Jehovah's Witnesses, I think, is their pacifist orientation. On the one hand, they will never enter into armed conflicts with the authorities or with the judicial system.

On the other hand, despite the fact that the pacifism of Jehovah's Witnesses is not something illegal, given the law "On Alternative Civilian Service", the refusal of some young people to serve in the army still does not please a whole circle of people in the ruling elite, because it means less the number of soldiers, a smaller number of young people who, for ideological reasons, will not become officers. They are ready to do the dirtiest work, but they do not get into the "war machine". Already this can set against Jehovah's Witnesses. The second is that they are unrequited, they cannot fight back. And they take it as a test.

Interviewed by Vladimir Oivin,
"Portal‑Credo.Ru",
Gorno-Altaisk