Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky (November 1, 1578 - April 30, 1642) - Russian national hero, military and political figure, head of the Second People's Militia, which liberated Moscow from the Polish-Lithuanian invaders.
The name of the Russian prince - Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky, will forever go down in the history of our Motherland as the name of a man who loved his Fatherland with great love and did everything possible from himself to prevent its enslavement by foreign invaders. Tracing his entire life path through sources of information that have survived to this day - chronicles, legends, bit books, state acts, statements of his contemporaries, etc., you never cease to be surprised how multifaceted the image of this truly wonderful person, a great citizen of long-suffering Russia, was .

D.M. was born Pozharsky in the family of one of the descendants of Rurikovich. His father, Mikhail Fedorovich Pozharsky, is a descendant in the 13th generation of the Grand Duke of Suzdal and Vladimir, and then the Grand Duke of Kyiv, Yuri Vladimirovich Dolgoruky. His mother, Evfrosinya Fedorovna Beklemisheva, was from a noble old noble family. She married Mikhail Fedorovich in 1571. At that time, Tsar Ivan IV (the Terrible) ruled in Russia. Apparently, Mikhail Fedorovich did not serve in the public service, since in the discharge books of that time, according to historians, he is not visible anywhere. He lived with Evfrosinya Fedorovna for a relatively short time, since in August 1587 Mikhail Fedorovich died.

Evfrosinya Fedorovna and Mikhail Fedorovich had three children - a daughter, Daria, and two sons, Dmitry and Vasily. When his father died, Daria was fifteen years old, and Dmitry was nine. It can be assumed that shortly before his death, Mikhail Fedorovich and his family lived in one of his estates, most likely in the Suzdal district, since he was buried in the family tomb of the Pozharsky princes - in the Spaso-Evfimiev monastery in Suzdal. An interesting fact is that, as a remembrance of his soul, the prince bequeathed one of his villages to the Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery and the bill of sale for this village, transferred to the monastery after the death of the prince, was personally signed by his son Dmitry, although he was only nine years old. This suggests that the Pozharsky family paid great attention to the education of children, in particular, teaching them to read and write from an early age. And at the age of nine, Dmitry already knew how to read and write.

After the death of Mikhail Fedorovich, the Pozharsky family moved to Moscow, where Dmitry Mikhailovich's grandfather, Fyodor Ivanovich Pozharsky, had his own house on the Arbat. And in 1593, fifteen-year-old Dmitry entered the sovereign's service, although he was mentioned in the discharge books only from 1598, in the rank of "solicitor with a dress." In the same year, he, along with other nobles, signed a conciliar decree on the election of Boris Fedorovich Godunov as king. Pozharsky faithfully served the new tsar and in 1602 received the rank of steward. The king and mother D.M. Pozharsky - Evfrosinya Feodorovna, who first becomes the noblewoman of the daughter of the king, Xenia, and then, the supreme noblewoman of the queen herself, Maria Grigoryevna Godunova. After the death of Tsar B.F. Godunov in April 1605, the Pretender, False Dmitry I, a protege of the Polish king Sigismund III, came to power.

With the coming to power of False Dmitry I, to whom both Moscow and the boyar Duma swore allegiance, Pozharsky continues to be at court. In May 1606, the Pretender was killed and Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky was called the Tsar, to whom D.M. Pozharsky. However, with the appearance in Russia of the second Pretender - False Dmitry II, detachments of Lithuanians and Poles invade Russian lands, who, supporting False Dmitry II, begin to rob and ravage Russian cities, villages, villages, churches and monasteries. Tsar Shuisky is trying to organize a fight against the new Pretender and uninvited guests, Lithuanians and Poles, mobilizing all the means at his disposal. And among other close associates, he dispatches Prince D.M. to fight against the Lithuanians and Poles. Pozharsky - first as a regimental governor in 1608, and then appoints him governor to the city of Zaraisk, Ryazan district in February 1610.

For zealous service in protecting the Fatherland from the Poles, Pozharsky received from Tsar V.I. Shuisky in 1610 to the estate from his old estate in the Suzdal district, the village of Nizhny Landekh and the village of Kholuy with villages, repairs and wastelands. In the charter it was said that he "showed a lot of service and stature, hunger and impoverishment in everything and any siege need endured for a long time, and he did not encroach on the thieves' charm and confusion, he stood in the firmness of his mind firmly and unshakably without any unsteadiness". And, indeed, throughout his life, D.M. Pozharsky never betrayed his duty either to the Russian sovereigns or to his Fatherland. And he enjoyed great respect not only among his associates, but also among his opponents. Not once in his life did D.M. Pozharsky was not convicted of any treason, forgery, meanness, embezzlement, hypocrisy, cruelty towards anyone or any other negative acts. On the contrary, he was distinguished by a gentle and kind character, attention to human misfortunes, tolerance for people, and generosity. He knew how to find a common language with people of all classes, from a serf to a boyar, which was very surprising for the era of that time. And it is not at all accidental that when Nizhny Novgorod began to look for a commander for the second people's militia, they unanimously settled on the candidacy of Prince Pozharsky.

Prince Pozharsky himself was an extremely modest person, and he once said ironically about himself: “If we had such a pillar as Prince Vasily Vasilyevich Golitsyn, everyone would hold on to him, but I didn’t give in to such a great cause past him; now the boyars and the whole earth have enslaved me to this matter. But Prince V.V. Golitsyn at that time headed the embassy from the Moscow boyars and was in Poland in Warsaw with King Sigismund III to ask his son, Prince Vladislav, to be king in Russia, which was opposed by the entire patriotic population of Russia of all classes. That is, in fact, V.V. Golitsyn embarked on the path of betrayal of Orthodoxy, supporting the decision of the "Seven Boyarshchina" (the supreme power in Moscow during the interregnum in 1610-1612) to call the Catholic prince to the Russian throne. Under these conditions, Prince D.M. Pozharsky turned out to be the only person capable, in terms of his military, business and human qualities, of leading the second people's militia, which was being formed in Nizhny Novgorod.

It should be noted that all the reigning during the life of D.M. Pozharsky, Russian sovereigns celebrated the zealous service of the prince to his Fatherland, bringing him closer and rewarding him. The young Russian Tsar M.F. especially honored him. Romanov, instructing D.M. Pozharsky especially important things. So in 1619 he wrote in his letter of commendation: "... and he, our boyar, Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich, remembering God and the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Orthodox Peasant faith and our cross kissing, with us the Great Sovereign Tsar and the Great Prince Mikhail Feodorovich of all Russia on I sat under siege in Moscow, and for the Orthodox Peasant faith and for the holy churches of God and for us the Great Sovereign against Korolevich Vladislav and the Polish and Lithuanian and German people stood strong and courageous, and fought in battle, and fought on the attack, not sparing his head, and He was not seduced by any of the King's charms, and he showed many of his services and truth to us and to the entire Moscow State, and being under siege, endured impoverishment and need in everything.

According to the well-known archivist of the 19th century A.F. Malinovsky, Senator, Manager of the Archives of the College of Foreign Affairs, Dmitry Pozharsky died on April 30 (April 20, old style), 1642, at the 65th year of his life. In the monastery of Nikola Zaraisky, a note was found about the day of Pozharsky’s death in the following words: “ZRN, April K, the boyar Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky reposed, on Wednesday, the second week of the pasture.” In his work "Review of Moscow", which Malinovsky completed in 1826, but was first published only in 1992, the author writes that many thought that Pozharsky was buried in Moscow's Kazan Cathedral, of which he was the first builder. Modern studies have shown that his ashes rest in the family tomb in the Suzdal Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery.

The Pozharsky family ceased in the male line in 1682 with the death of his grandson Yuri Ivanovich Pozharsky, who died childless. After the suppression of the Pozharsky family, the tomb was abandoned and in 1765-1766 it was broken down “because of dilapidation”. In 1851, the famous Russian archaeologist Count A. S. Uvarov, during excavations, discovered brick crypts and white-stone tombs arranged in three rows at this place, and in 1885 a marble mausoleum was built over them, built with folk funds according to the project of A. M. Gornostaeva. The mausoleum was dismantled during the years of Soviet power in 1933. Archaeological research in the summer of 2008 showed that the tomb remained intact. Above the burial place of D. M. Pozharsky on his birthday on November 1, 2008, a slab and a memorial cross were installed. In 2009, the marble crypt was restored and opened on November 4 by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev

In Personality and Social Psychology Review. What is the significance of this work? Various studies of intelligence have been carried out for a long time and a great pile of them has accumulated. Mark Zuckerman, Jordan Siberman, and Judith Hall conducted a meta-study that compared data from 63 studies conducted from 1928 to 2012. And now we already know for sure: faith is not from a great mind.

The most interesting question that can be asked in the wake of a meta-study is as old as time. What is primary? Is low intelligence a consequence of religious upbringing, or is religiosity a consequence of innate low intelligence? There is evidence that IQ is heritable. However, there is evidence of the importance of education. Annette Lare (Ph.D., Berkeley), in her book Unequal Childhoods, examines approaches to parenting across different social strata: the middle class spends a lot of time interacting with children and giving rational explanations for their decisions, while the working class relies on unquestioned parenting. authority and prefers to entertain children with television.

It is clear whose children will subsequently go to university, and whose will wash pools until the end of their days. It is also not difficult to see that parental authoritarianism is exactly the model that traditional religions preach: corporal punishment, the unconditional authority of mentors and other wooden toys nailed to the church floor.

Let's try to figure it out. But first you need to decide: what is religion? Faith in God or something else?

Pray, fast, flap your wings

Once upon a time there was an American psychologist Frederick Skinner Burres in the middle of the 20th century. Being a "radical behaviorist", Skinner stunned the faint of heart with the assertion that free will does not exist, and all human behavior is woven from innate and acquired reflexes - well-established reactions to stimuli. "But how do you explain things like belief in the supernatural?" - asked the offended zealots of human uniqueness, freedom and other pleasant illusions. Skinner grinned and ran the following experiment:

A pigeon is placed in a special box. After a certain period of time, the dove receives food, which the dove cannot influence in any way ... But it tries very hard - it begins to repeat the actions that it performed immediately before receiving the manna from heaven. A reflex is formed: action - reward. As a result, different pigeons, like clockwork, repeated different, but equally meaningless actions - one walked in circles, the other flapped its wings, etc. In general, they did exactly the same thing as thousands of believers who go to bow to the next holy bones in search of an imaginary healing or real social approval. Religious behavior is basically reflexive. It does not distinguish us from the rest of the animal world at all, on the contrary, it makes us related to it. Pray, fast and flap your wings!

"But what about God?" - you ask. Have mercy, even a dove does not need God for ritual dances, and even more so, the king of nature, man, does not need him. This is a late adornment: first, a person learned to dance, calling for rain, and then the mind screwed gods, spirits and other analytical patches to this. Philosophical questions really excite the minds of a tiny percentage of believers. But they are an excellent decoy for atheists, who habitually attack the idea of ​​God with Russell's rusty teapot at the ready. Not realizing at the same time that they are beating their foreheads against the stucco, instead of undermining the foundation. The foundation is the worship of bones, regular rituals, priests in funny dresses and other reflexes. In general, everything that makes up 99% of a deep and rich spiritual life.

Most Catholics are unfamiliar with the scholastic proofs of the existence of God, over which Thomas Aquinas pored over. Ask the Orthodox - because of what particular dogmas there was a centuries-old enmity with the Catholics. Hear a strained lowing in response. But they are all deeply convinced that their magical rituals are the most correct, and the priests in dresses are the most beautiful.

In the 90s, we watched with rapture as crowds of people from the system of "the best education in the world" charged Chumak's water to treat prostate cancer with it. In the bright 2000s, the Orthodox Church took up the struggle and snatched the people from the clutches of competitors. Now the crowds are going to the marble offices of the ROC. They quarrel, shove each other with their elbows, are indignant at the “vips” that go out of line ... but they stand in search of a miraculous cure from painted boards, bones and rags of unknown origin. Where is God here, in this mixture of totemism and animism?

But unlike a stupid bird, a person is able to analyze his reflex connections, cut off non-working options. This is the influence of analytical intelligence on religiosity. The faster the processor rustles in the skull, the more obvious that dancing naked with a tambourine at the ready does not contribute to the harvest. Whatever was said in ancient books by ancient crooks.

Profitable Reflex

However, the intellect did not develop at all to solve abstract problems at the school desk, but to advance its body in the food chain of fellow species. These meta-studies concern analytical intelligence, which is difficult to apply "in its purest form" anywhere except for IQ tests. In addition to analytical abilities, the success of an individual is determined by such things as social adaptability, the ability to get along with fellow men and manipulate them - all this is included in the concept of "emotional intelligence".

It’s time for the emotional intelligence to ask: since stupid brethren are addicted to stupid dancing, can you use this to your advantage? A shaman's job is not a dusty business. No need to go on the attack on fat mammoths and evil neighbors with a sharpened stick in their hands. You just need to powder the brains of your fellow tribesmen and enjoy a high status: grub from the belly, younger girls, that's all. Modern shamans do not need to learn programming languages, macroeconomics, or strategic management. A simple thousand-year-old philosophy, a couple of proven psychological tricks, spells in a dead language - profit!

Meet Hieromonk Elijah (in the world Pavel Semin), 26 years old. Recently, five people were on their white Gelenvagen, two to death. In the blood they found a sea of ​​grace and one bottle of vodka.

The idealistic fools of Pussy Riot got two years for anti-clerical protest. A stupid MEPhI graduate student who tried to resist the clericalization of the institute flew out into the cold. At the same time, a 26-year-old nun with a thin beard was dissecting in a car worth several million. The language does not dare to call this ascetic a fool - he clearly saw on which side of the force the brand new Gelenvagen was waiting for him. Serious business. ROC MP, since 1054.

Ron Hubbard once said: "If you want to be a millionaire, create your own religion." Faithful Scientologists have already dragged half the world through the courts, claiming that Hubbard did not say this. So, I will clarify - in vain he did not say this. Deception is a common thing in nature (for example, a bird can sound an alarm to drive fellow competitors away from a food source and devour it to satiety). Do the leaders and shamans themselves believe in what they preach to their flock? Vladimir Putin and his wife stood in front of television cameras for ten years with candles in their hands before it turned out that they were not even married.

The authors of the meta-study have an interesting point: they distinguish between faith and "religious behavior" (i.e., imitation of faith). In the case of the latter, the negative correlation with the level of intelligence is smaller. Simply put, a smart person is unlikely to believe in myths, but can pretend if it suits him. I will add - not only pretend, but also start fooling others.

The basis of the well-being of the drug mafia is the army of drug addicts. The basis of the well-being of priests is the army of believers. In order for the cunning in cassocks to have white gelenvagens, someone's children must be missing a couple of dozen IQ points.

Brain Eaters

The unfortunate bird, which Dr. Skinner bullied, landed in an unusual situation. After all, where is it seen in nature, so that food itself falls from the sky, also on schedule? As a rule, you need to try to get life-giving calories, so the brain has learned to remember the important connection between action and reward. If in the "Skinner box" food did not fall from the sky, but appeared at the touch of a lever, the victims of science simply found the treasured lever, without any religious dances. Here we come to the main thing that is needed for the formation of bad religious habits - impotence. Dancing with a tambourine occurs where there are no levers of genuine influence on the surrounding reality.

What is the equivalent of a Skinner box in human life? Prison. It is no wonder that religiosity reaches a special intensity precisely in the zone, in the army and other prison-type institutions. The criminal culture of any nation is inseparable from magic and superstitions. In prison, belief in the supernatural also has a therapeutic effect. Powerlessness is depressing, and a magical dance performed in front of a figurine of a saint, molded from a crumb of bread, gives the illusion of some kind of influence on one's destiny (there are good stories on this topic).

So, if you are a young nun on a white Gelenvagen, then it is in your vital interests to bring the living conditions of your compatriots as close as possible to prison ones. It is especially important to prevent such soulless Western perversions as democracy and the free market from penetrating Holy Russia, mechanisms that allow one to manage one's own life and influence the society around. People must live and die according to the will of the almighty state machine. Being deprived of the opportunity to build long-term plans, they will take up various forms of irrational, destructive behavior. Some will kill themselves with vodka and heroin, others will collect consumer loans as much as they can carry, but still others will rush to kiss your good pastoral hand.

However, on the way from a simple monastic Gelenvagen to Maybach of the primate class, a terrible enemy lies in wait for you. This enemy of spirituality is called the "Flynn effect" - so, in honor of the American professor Jim Flynn, they call the phenomenon of the gradual growth of analytical intelligence. For example, in the period from 1932 to 1978, the IQ of Americans increased by 13.8 points (this does not mean that the average IQ became 113 - the current average is always taken as a hundred). Intellectual growth is also confirmed by other tests - for example, Raven's matrices. How to deal with this scourge, which is rapidly reducing the food supply of our connoisseurs of Mercedes products?

Consider the data on the importance of parental authoritarianism in educating pool cleaners. It is probably the dying off of authoritarian tendencies in parenting that is one of the causes of the Flynn effect (along with nutrition and other factors, of course). Reflex connections learned in childhood are much stronger than all the others (the ethologist Konrad Lorenz called them "imprints" - imprints in the mind). Why struggle with education that reaches people after the core of the personality has been formed? It's easier to cripple the brain small and defenseless. For euphony, calling it "protection of the traditional family."

In Europe there is a frightening thing called "juvenile justice". In fact, its task is to protect the rights of minors. Including from the encroachments of their own parents, if they turn out to be lovers of corporal punishment and other "traditional spirituality." In Russia, attempts to introduce juvenile justice met with fierce resistance. And not from the opposition at all, but from the most loyalist forces. The Russian Orthodox Church, the People's Cathedral and the Essence of Time movements all understood juvenile justice as "the Orthodox will be forbidden to beat their children."

In fact, protecting a family is absurd. According to the ideas of human evolution, our ancestors were monogamous even before they actually became people. That is, the family existed long before the world religions, and will continue to exist well after. Defending the "traditional family" is a euphemism for defending the morals of the rural poor. The same domestic violence and other savagery that turn healthy children into a food base for candle oligarchs.

The situation is similar with the demand for a ban on abortion, common to all religious conservatives. This is not about “protecting life”, but about preserving a potential flock. After all, most of the children "saved from abortion" will grow up with poor and uneducated parents, they will have a difficult childhood and developmental delay. So, sooner or later these children will come to church. Or a heroin dealer.

Against the backdrop of the fight against juvenile justice, the priests are getting deeper and deeper into the primary education system. Judging by the reports, thousands and thousands of first-graders remembered the past first of September as the very day when a strange bearded uncle in a dress splashed them with water for some reason. They don't know yet that their uncle has come to steal their brains.

special way

But still, it is wrong to say that religion is only harm and a way of earning cunning hoaxers. If only one party (pastors, not flocks) benefited, religious institutions would hardly have survived for so long. Christian communities performed many important functions, which in our time have been taken over by the welfare state. Help for the poor, orphanages, isolation of the mentally ill, and so on. Today's Utah Mormons give around 13% of their income to charity. But can the Orthodox boast of such a thing?

Recently, in the center of Moscow, the 2nd operational police regiment under the command of an Orthodox drug addict Dmitry Enteo dispersed a harmless procession of Pastafarians. Pastafarianism is a parodic religion of worship of the Spaghetti Monster popular in the West. What could the same Mormons answer to this parody? - “It's all fun, but, in addition to gods and rituals, we have something else: here is our charity, here are our orphanages, here are our adherents taking out ducks for the elderly, and you guys are weak?” But the Orthodox can only respond with outbursts of aggression. Precisely because official Orthodoxy has nothing in its soul but a cult, dresses and other tinsel. Where is your charity, Orthodox? Did everything go to polishing the Maybachs and Gelenvagens? Why is “Orthodox activism” about attacks on dissidents and pogroms in museums, and not volunteer work in hospitals and hospices?

The Catholic Church can boast of an educational role in the history of Europe, because it was she who founded the oldest European universities. Theology was taught there from the very beginning, and did not break in riding on the administrative resource, as is the case with the Orthodox department at MEPhI. In Russia, universities were founded by secular authorities, about seven centuries later. The more ridiculous the current attempts to create "Orthodox creationism" look. Citizens of the priests! European creationism is the fruit of a long neighborhood of Christianity and science, represented by thinkers such as Teilhard de Chardin. And your Orthodox relationship with science was limited to pogroms of printing houses and demands for a ban on Sechenov's works. Therefore, modern "Orthodox creationism" is a pop-toloko forehead, amusing the audience with stories about how genetics refuted the theory of evolution and other delightful stories.

Let every religion be basically anti-intellectual, but we have a very special case. In our Orthodox case, we have all the minuses of religion without a single plus. Unless, of course, we do not consider a slight psychotherapeutic effect for the prisoners of our prison of nations as a plus, which allows them to distract themselves from gloomy thoughts about their own impotence while kissing painted boards. Therefore - keep your children away from suspicious bearded men in dresses.

What is now conditionally called “Russian nationalism” en masse is absolutely the same sub-passionate dull shit, like a caricatured Jewish community with peg-eyed violinists. Obviously, any dominion begins with the mental and ideological enslavement of the conquered. The ethno-national policy of the Empire obviously lies in the comprehensive obstruction of the national genesis of the subordinate peoples. Ethnicity is being “culturally circumcised” - the national culture is cut down to the level of national costumes and other dances around the fire - in order to depict “blooming complexity” and splendor, but to remove the thought of “separatism” (independence) from the heads of subordinates.

What is now conditionally called “Russian nationalism” en masse is absolutely the same sub-passionate dull shit, like a caricatured Jewish community with peg-eyed violinists.

Obviously, any dominion begins with the mental and ideological enslavement of the conquered. The ethno-national policy of the Empire obviously lies in the comprehensive obstruction of the national genesis of the subordinate peoples. Ethnicity is being “culturally circumcised” - the national culture is cut down to the level of national costumes and other dances around the fire - in order to depict “blooming complexity” and splendor, but to remove the thought of “separatism” (independence) from the heads of subordinates.

The same is elementarily done with social and political phenomena. Meistrimny nationalism is merged by some craftsmen into two garbage dumps of equal size and equal smell. The first dump is “Orthodox patriotism”, “conservatism” and other “lousy beard with a shovel”. The second dump is Soviet patriotism, “red-brown” and other “I also shot at Chubais”.

Here, Jewish nationalists do not like their traditional “Izya was a good boy and played the violin since childhood.” Well, people don't want to be Izyami and play the violin. And any normal Russian person is sickened by the pseudo-nationalism of the Orthodox Imperials, tk. their image of a Russian is something good-naturedly imbecile in a funny painted shirt, such a “Russian” is always deceived by either Jews, or Americans, or just anyone who is not lazy. Ontological sucker, in short.

The image of the Russian offered by the Soviet patriots is even more vile - sheer proletarian bydlanity and disgusting, seasoned with dullness and sanctimonious morality even more abruptly than the Orthodox. The proletarian is also deceived by everyone - from Chubais to Masha Gaidar. Because sho is also a goof. Moreover, sovpatriotism, in addition to draining nationalism, also ensures the draining of leftism.

The ideological point of assembly of such “nationalists” is invariably rooted in some of their global historical failure, in complaints about how the poor were abused over them - some were cruelly deceived in 1917, others in 1991-93. Is it really possible to build success by relying on losing as a starting point, huh?

It is forbidden. We are dealing with social technologies as old as the world. Inoculated subpassionarity. Russian nationalism is unfavorable to many, and therefore, as “Russian nationalism”, Russians are thrust with rotten carrots - “cropped culture” - funny, caricatured. Fofudyu, a painted shirt, ostentatious Judaism and “glory to the proletariat” - eat, don’t slosh. As an image of “Russianness”, the above-described negative images are palmed off, which scare away normal Russian people. What will be the reaction of a normal Russian person (businessman, athlete, manager, engineer, programmer, etc.) when he walks down the street and sees funny goat-bearded “nationalists” with their “let us not offend God”? Or a group of Soviet relic attendants with the newspaper Zavtra?

This is a national reservation where the Indians were driven, taking away their guns, but leaving feathers as a “cultural identity”. Shake your feathers - glory to the spirits of your ancestors!

Nation genesis, the formation of the Russian nation will not occur as long as we consider it “nationalism” and “truly Russian”. All this swamp must be burned. And it will be replaced by a real, progressive, colorful, free and strong national aesthetics. And it will be the aesthetics of national democracy.

The recent anti-Israeli statements of the new President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, caused a natural stir among the enlightened world community. Ahmadinejad's attacks were directed towards Israel, and, according to diplomats from different countries, they are clearly anti-Semitic in nature. All this gave rise to a new round of discussion of the question of whether the Islamic Republic of Iran is a terrorist state that deserves appropriate bombing consequences from the United States.

This article, of course, does not claim to be a study of the political and religious characteristics of Iran. Rather, it is just a brief essay on some sort of political "paradox" that we think Iran is, both for the West and for the Muslim world. Through the efforts of the Russian media, the ideas of the average Russian about Islam are something between a thriller and a fairy tale. The phrase "Islamic fundamentalism" is quite possible to frighten children.

If we consider Iran from the point of view of political science, there is democracy there, in the form of the notorious "separation of powers", known since the time of European humanists, as well as the elective basis of the ruling and legislative bodies, provided for by Islamic law. But the fact is that the standard political criteria, one way or another, are inapplicable to the Iranian situation. European political science considers power as a purely secular, administrative tool, designed to ensure the economic and legal well-being of its citizens. Whereas in Iran, the Islamic Republic, the perception of power turns out to be traditional for Muslim countries - the power there is legitimized by religion and is a natural continuation, a conductor of religious principles in the life of society. Iran's Islam is Shiite and, accordingly, dictates its complex ideological and historical laws.

European democracy is not like the democracy of antiquity. In the ancient world, modern democratic ideas were called "ochlocracy" and were treated with little reverence. There was a significant difference between the demos and the plebs. Historically, the electoral right, when it existed, was always limited to class, property, educational and many other qualifications (by the way, women never had the right to choose - this is also important). All these restrictions were removed only in the 20th century, and even then not even at the beginning. In the ancient world, the pagan worldview did not a priori assume the possibility of human equality. The Catholic medieval division of society into three classes (clergy, chivalry, peasants) also did not imply this - before God, of course, everyone is equal, but some are still more equal, God allows them to rule. The Protestant ethic destroyed the power of the European Catholic hierarchy with the thesis that every Christian is a clergyman - that is, "intermediaries" from the clergy were left out of work. The next logical step was the overthrow of the "God given administration" - that is, the aristocratic powers eventually became ideologically and religiously illegitimate. In the end, everything ended with liberalism and democracy.

European democracy is the product of a long historical process, drop by drop new values ​​were absorbed and dissolved in new generations of Europeans. And for visitors, they are by no means always clear, as evidenced, in particular, by the recent crisis with French immigrants. Needless to say, the countries of the Middle East have never undergone such a long historical transformation.

The Shiites, also known as the Alids, are the oldest Islamic "opposition". As an illustration of the ignorance that exists in Russian society regarding Islam, I recall a phrase that I heard from an Arabic specialist at a lecture at a very famous Moscow oriental university: "Shiites are such Muslims who believe that Allah was wrong in choosing Muhammad as a prophet, Ali needed to. If scientists from the department of a state university say this, what can we expect from journalists?

Of course, this definition of Shiism is wrong. Obviously, spiritual salvation is an absolute value for every true believer. Sunnis recognize the value of a community if the community tirelessly fulfills and spreads the Law brought by the Prophet. Accordingly, the community paves its way to salvation. Decisions are the common cause of authoritative representatives of the Islamic hierarchy. From here, in particular, the possibility of building a World Caliphate, for the universal good of the world, logically follows.

The Shiites, on the other hand, thought in time: if in order to guide people on the true path, it took the Prophet Muhammad (as is known, Jews and Christians in Islam are considered to have misunderstood the message of God), then the one who, in one way or another, should lead the faithful along this path , directly "translates God's will." Ali, who was Muhammad's cousin and husband of his daughter Fatima, was recognized as such. Thus, the three righteous caliphs who preceded him, apparently, became illegitimate for the Shiites. Representatives of the Ali clan formed a line of twelve imams ruling the Shiites, the last of which disappeared in the 9th century, became "hidden". And he leads from "concealment". Since then, the Shiites have also been ruled by imams, who are a kind of "locum tenens" until the twelfth "hidden" imam returns and, as the Mahdi, the messiah, establishes world justice (then Isa appears, and there it is not far from the Last Judgment). The imam's decisions, accordingly, are God's will, they are not discussed.

An interesting interpretation of Shiism was given in the book "Order of the Assassins" by Marshall Hodgson - they say that the Sunnis, in accordance with the Abrahamic tradition, perceive time, world history, as a kind of straight line. And the Shiites with their imamat divide history into cycles, in each of which the story with the Prophet is played out (the role of the prophet is played by the imam), and the faithful oppose the surrounding pagan world (the role of the pagans is played by everyone who does not believe in the imam).

Religious struggle is generally a traditional occupation of the Shiites - they were almost always in strong opposition to Sunnism, more often partisan. There are a great variety of Shia sects and a great variety of views on Islam in general and on the Imamate in particular. A hadith attributed to Muhammad speaks of seventy-three Muslim sects, of which one will be saved, and all the rest will go to a certain place. To analyze each of these sects is not possible, and it is not necessary. The bottom line is that the Shiites have been following their spiritual leaders for centuries, without subjecting them to criticism - the decisions of the God-chosen imam are outside the competence of the European "rationo". Such is modern Iran.

Shah Iran became the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) after the 1979 revolution, when the now legendary Imam Khomeini took the reins of government. To expect democracy from the IRI, similar to the Western one, is a sheer illusion, a historical and religious impossibility. Therefore, all arguments about the democratic or non-democratic nature of Iran are a performance played out by the gray cardinals of political PR for one purpose or another. Rahbar really rules there - the spiritual leader, one of the associates of the late Khomeini - Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The title is not hereditary, but elective (selected by theologians from the Council of Experts). Officially, he does not rule, but only manages the affairs of the ummah, but in practice, little happens without his knowledge. The president is elected only for four years, the advantage of the actual theocracy is that such a person is permanent - this allows the country to pursue a long and prudent policy, without being distracted by squabbles of various political forces, which change course every now and then, in order to again take a different vector of movement in four years . A permanent leader can plan a policy for twenty years in advance, adjusting it in time, based on the current world situation, using various presidents as executors at a certain stage of his plan, selecting a president that is most suitable for the tasks of a four or eight-year stage - in fact, the president is, after all, the executive branch , isn't it?.. However, the Rahbar's power is not absolute - if necessary, it can be limited by the Supervisory Board.

Khatami was suitable for the stage when Iran had to meet the criteria of "liberalism", when a pro-Western correction of the social and economic apparatus was required. When the state gathered strength for the implementation of the nuclear program, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was released onto the scene - a man of a completely different warehouse, a former military man, one of the counterintelligence commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This is such an ideological regime military organization, not directly subordinate to the army and even to the president - only to the rahbar. As examples of such organizations, we can recall the SS - however, it is not at all necessary to endow the IRGC with a corresponding negative connotation, it's just the first thing that came to mind. At one time, Ahmadinejad began his activities as the mayor of Tehran by banning the construction of McDonald's and Burger King - in fact, he fulfilled the old dream of many anti-globalists. Having taken the presidency, he began with well-known aggressive statements against Israel. It would be more appropriate to say that he was awarded the presidency - the Supervisory Board, by its higher authority, excluded all candidates from the presidential race with the exception of eight, including former President Rafsanjani. Elections in Iran are a very strange thing, disputes about what they are still do not subside. On the one hand, there is a rahbar, who must certainly approve the people's choice - without him there is no way. On the other hand, the election race was fierce, and the result of the election was somewhat unpredictable until the very end. The bottom line is that the perception of power is also part of the national mentality and the legitimization of this very power occurs precisely through the prism of the mentality of a particular people, and not at all through abstract European concepts of freedom and justice or dry political science theories divorced from life. At one time in the West, they also tried to understand why some general secretary of the party's Central Committee, and not the chairman of the government, came to them from the USSR. It can be assumed that in the minds of the Iranians, the contradiction between the power of the rahbar and the electoral race is not a contradiction at all, but looks like something obvious and self-evident. But it should be noted that both the Rahbar and the Iranian clerics were satisfied with the people's choice. The very procedure of Ahmadinejad's inauguration, in particular, consisted in the approval of the people's choice by the rahbar.

But what about the freedom and direct power of the people? It is worth considering what kind of popular choice can exist in a culture that has been following its imams for centuries, and now is looking forward to the Mahdi - there is even a special place for him in the Iranian parliament (Majlis). Actually, following the imam and waiting for the mahdi is the people's choice - it has not changed for centuries, and will not change now. And all the now offended candidates from the liberal forces of Iran - perhaps, for the Iranian society, these are those who are usually called "marginals" in the West, and their ideology, in essence, is "marginal".

Some paradox of Iran is as follows. Although the idea of ​​building a global Caliphate is alien to the Shiites, that is, they are not obliged to strive for religious expansion or consolidation of the entire Muslim world, Iran now has every chance of becoming the center of this Muslim world. In essence, Iran is now the main country of Muslim "resistance", having both ideological and economic power (weapons, of course, too). Other "Muslim" countries prefer to bow to the United States, making full use of the levers of their resource-based economy. In general, the Middle East is a zone quite fraught with direct clashes. Most likely, thousands of American economic analysts are predicting such clashes in the region. If, as a result of another crisis, the price of oil rises above $ 100 per barrel, a truly cheerful life will begin in the countries of the "golden billion". Therefore, the entire progressive community is "rushing about with this Iran."

Iran itself is another matter. The fact is that Islam in Iran is not fully "traditional". Iranian Shiism is a completely modernistic creation, belonging to a number of people who possessed a multifaceted knowledge of European culture and, at the same time, combined it with Islam and the corresponding classical Islamic education. First of all, this, of course, is Ayatollah Khomeini himself. There is also another well-known ideologue of the Islamic Revolution, who went much further in the "modernization of Islam" - Ali Shariati (Khomeini did not recognize all of his ideas). He proposed the concept of "red Shiism" - that is, "Shia socialism". Comparing the European utopia with the canons of traditional Islam, he simply came to the conclusion that Islamic laws carry absolute social justice. Freedom, equality and brotherhood are all Islam. Gender equality is also Islam, a well-known place from the Holy Scriptures about how a woman was created, Shariati translated not as “ribs”, but as “essences”, “souls” - that is, a woman was created not from a rib, but from the soul of a man . But this is ideal. Historical Islam, according to Shariati, is also characterized by some entropy, it slides into paganism, forgetting the fundamental principles, therefore it needs updates (or rather, constant returns to the fundamental principles) - it is logical to assume that in the Shia worldview such a renewing principle will be the imam, who is in everyone " cycle" purifies Islam with its Divine revelation.

In general, it seems to me that the Russian public clearly underestimates the scale of the events now taking place in the ancient Persian land. The modern Islamic world is a huge human and economic resource and potential. His only problem is disunity. If the Islamic world consolidates, it will undoubtedly form a new "pole" in the global geopolitical space, and even more than that - it will change the map of this space in a strong way, and will fundamentally affect the balance of power. Consolidation must take place not only at the political and economic level, more importantly, at the religious level. In the writings of the ideologists of the Iranian Islamic Revolution, the idea of ​​the need to integrate Shiism and Sunnism is quite clearly traced. The modernized Islam of modern Iran may well become such a consolidating principle and, in addition, absorb many healthy elements of the European cultural heritage. New Muslims will combine knowledge of European culture with devotion to tradition, republican separation of powers with fanatical devotion to a spiritual leader, European costume with traditional clothing. This is not at all about "medieval ayatollahs" and "medieval sharia", but about the emergence of Islam to a completely new qualitative level, where ayatollahs rule jointly with presidents, and sharia is adjacent to parliamentarism. Traditional Sunni Islam is very strict about the intellectual interpretations of the Qur'an and the Sunnah, while Shiism has always been open to all sorts of "philosophies" and "allegories" and, accordingly, is able to absorb modern Western philosophy, just as it once absorbed the ancient one. Perhaps a reflection of such a future consolidation can be seen in the example of the domestic Islamic philosopher Heydar Jemal - judging by his works, he clearly sympathizes with Khomeini, Shiism, but calls himself the ideologist of political Islam in general. On his example, all this is quite organically combined with the promises of European traditionalist philosophy, with genonism. Perhaps the transition of such views from individual "marginal intellectuals" to broad human soil is only a matter of time.

In the meantime, Iran, under the leadership of Ahmadinejad, is expanding its armed forces, building military bases and actively implementing a nuclear program - there is already gas for uranium enrichment, there is all the infrastructure. Uranium, of course, is purely for peaceful purposes, and the army - what is the army for, what are the Shahab missiles for? Obviously for war. On the other side of the globe, the US is already sharpening its claws, intoxicated by its victories in Afghanistan and Iraq. The United States is putting pressure on the UN and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) with all its might, stating that if the world community does not deal with the Iranian nuclear program, then the States will "make every effort." Israel says that if the world community does not deal with Iran, it will solve the problem "unilaterally."

Islam is eschatological, the end of time, the end of history is, in essence, an inevitable reality for it. Probably, from this should come a total readiness to "go to the end." Perhaps it is in the fire of thermonuclear fires that someone will see the face of the twelfth, "hidden" imam? ... It is not entirely clear how everything that happens will affect the main world advocate for the Middle Eastern devils, that is, Russia, but they can still find a common language.