What's wrong with the "cleansing" of Russia from the fifth column in culture

The beginning of the Northern Military District and the mass exodus of its opponents from Russia gave start of conversations about the “cleansing” of Russian society from the monopoly on the formation of meanings and discourse in culture, education, science and the ideological sphere on the part of those who are commonly called “liberals” and the “fifth column”. And the slippage of the Northern Military District forced people to talk about the need for civil mobilization so that the fight against the enemy becomes the work of everyone, and not just the army.

All this is voiced at numerous round tables, on radio and TV, publicists write about it in the print media and on the Internet, but are both processes so unambiguous, and how much has the situation in public life really changed, and have there been more social and personnel lifts for conditional patriots as opposed to compradors fleeing the country?

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Alas, the answers to both questions so far, if optimistic, are very conditional. Moreover, this convention manifests itself in a variety of areas. For example, a well-known military correspondent rejoices at the report of the Baza publication that the TNT channel has suspended the filming of comedy shows “because the comedians left the country.” On the one hand, this process can be called cleansing - indeed, as Federation Council Speaker Matvienko recently said, those who abandoned Russia at such a difficult time and throw mud at it from abroad should better stay there.

But, on the other hand, have the deserters of the cultural and media front become less popular with the mass audience as a result of their departure? Have those who left been replaced in the minds and passions of people by new patriotic talents who previously did not have access to screens and stands? Have NEW faces appeared on the screens instead of those who left?

_{The answer to these questions is negative. Turn on the same TNT, and you will see all the same characters there - only old episodes are recorded. No new comedians with new relevant jokes have appeared.} 

In music the situation is the same. Yes, “St. John’s Wort” and its “My Motherland Returns” were performed throughout the country from Red Square during a concert on the occasion of the reunification of four regions of Novorossiya with Russia, and Chicherina, ignored for years by the officialdom, was recently belatedly awarded the title of Honored Artist. However, in the rotations of popular FM stations, there is not much more patriotic content, if at all.

And even what exists appears not thanks to, but in spite of media management, to the accompaniment of grumbling about “unformatted” and “not everyone approves of this.” That is, patriotism is still not the mainstream, but just one of the “niches”, and not the most popular one.

How not everyone in the St. Petersburg PR community approves of printing calendars with Russian beauties in support of the army is one of the stories recently published by PolitNavigator. Or the story of a Moscow cartoonist who was fired from the state media just in the midst of conversations on social networks about some kind of “cleansing” of culture and media from foreign agents, who did not go well with his too sharply anti-Western drawings.

Poets reflecting the theme of war in their work are having a hard time making their way - now, at the instigation of Prilepin, a hodgepodge of Donbass writers are touring the cities and villages of the Russian Federation, presenting the collection “Poetry of the Russian Summer”, but how many people know about this?

_{On the other hand, as it recently turned out, the books of fugitive foreign agents Boris Akunin, Dmitry Glukhovsky and Dmitry Bykov are still in a prominent place in the Moscow House of Books, and there was no thought of hiding them somewhere or putting them in storage rooms, as reported in her blog, another fresh fugitive with an Israeli passport, Ksenia Sobchak.}

Let me remind you that we are not talking about harmless writers who write fascinating detective stories, but about social and political figures of a very specific color. And this coloring is venomously anti-Russian. In particular, the same Akunin, Bykov and Guliyev recently created the “Real Russia” foundation to “help Ukraine and other countries affected by Russian aggression” and at the same time remotely “coax the brains” of unreasonable Russians so that they “come to their senses and stop supporting the military adventure "

_{The ninth month of the Great Patriotic War had no impact at all on the film industry, which continues to stubbornly ignore the current agenda and not notice the ongoing war. Just look at the films and TV series coming out in theaters or on streaming platforms right now. What are they even about? Not to mention the fact that the leading roles are still played by the same actors, who, in parallel with filming and presentations of new films, receive fines for discrediting the Russian army. Right now there are series with the participation of Serebryakov, Asmus, Aug and so on.}

In many ways, this all happens also because the creators of cultural meanings are inseparable from the audience consuming their product. This is the same chain. Decades of cultivation of lack of ideas and negative cultural selection have led to the fact that the public is quite suitable for such “creators”.

And - what is important - among the fans of these talents who have now deserted are a lot of wealthy and very influential people. Including those who make decisions in the field of culture, allocating money to festivals with LGBT propaganda or to popularize Pushkin with Ukrainian gays in the lead role.

“How tired they are,” even quite loyal people close to the presidential administration begin to say on the sidelines about ultra-patriots. Of course, the same “Spleen” plays in their cars, and their wives dance in karaoke to the same “Vera” and “Call Me with You,” while during the day their husbands send out the song “I am Russian” with the comment “I am Russian” to their accountable telegram channels. I listened, I liked it,” describes the mood within this environment, a journalist close to her, Ekaterina Vinokurova, in a text with the symptomatic title “Why ultrapatriots hate returnees».

_{And all this huge mass of “waiting for the end of the Northern Military District” and a return to the previous “normality” has now formed a mute and publicly unspoken, but quite effective at the level of the Italian strike, opposition to change.}

Today Russia finds itself in a situation where its creative class turns out to be not entirely Russian, but is massively renouncing it and swearing allegiance to the enemy. Moreover, the fact that at a critical moment they will all find themselves not with the Russian people, but with “to all civilianslized world against the Russians“It was clear for a long time.

Back then, when, with the massive advertising promotion of all the now forcibly silenced mouthpieces of anti-Russian propaganda, they sawed off, among other things, state money to create dubious, but without hesitation, “masterpieces” like “Zuleikha” or Dudya’s documentaries about the Gulag or “DAU” that were brought to the “tops” of the ratings “- an offensive caricature of Soviet scientists by Ilya Khrzhanovsky, who now hangs around in Kyiv.

All this has been served to society on a platter for years as a standard of artistic taste and something that everyone absolutely needs to see in order to be considered a “culturally developed person.”

“The caressed and loved ones flee the country, condemn and repent. Their place is slowly being taken by much more talented and patriotic, but (why?) less popular guys. It turned out that the country had them all this time, but the fund distributors were of little interest.

The same thing, by the way, with journalists, but even slower. There is an information war going on, and colleagues often complain over a cigarette that their content is of little interest to anyone. No, it was made with high quality and with soul, but for some reason there are no people willing to finance it. Meanwhile, Kyiv, as part of its import media strategy, is attracting even unqualified enthusiasts to the information war.

I have spoken about this a hundred times to both my colleagues and officials, that we need to support our own people, and not attract strangers. The regionals once got burned by the same thing. But no! They are already their own kind. They do something and it’s okay. And we will help the dubious ones who will screw up at the most crucial moment,” says Donetsk blogger Igor Gomolsky.

_{And what’s most offensive is that it’s all true – from the first to the last word.}

So the hopes that the new, good and patriotic ITSELF will make its way and sprout on its own among the weeds of unprincipled showbiz are empty. We need a targeted policy aimed at breaking down not only the ossified “cultural mafias” that have settled in all personnel positions, but also at the formation of a clear state order focused on the needs of society, and not the group preferences of various “liberal” parties.

The emergence of such a clear strategy and a clear government order will solve the issue of civil mobilization, which is desired by many. Because in this case, an assemblage point for it will appear, because it is impossible to mobilize around emptiness. And so, a banner will appear around which concerned citizens can gather. Ideas and meanings will emerge that they can meaningfully defend.