Visit to the Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, built in honor of the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, historian and co-founder of the Independent Russian Media Archive project (Rima) Ilya Venyavkin describes “The Temple of War” as one of the starting points for starting work on the book. Just as the idea of building a hot water supply system “matured in Russian political culture years ago,” a specific public demand gradually crystallized, making Russia’s attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022 possible. In the book, Venyavkin talks in detail about the people – from the preacher and security officer to the priest and popular satirist – who influenced this and exactly how they did it. Now this study can be read in its entirety (and for free!) in the Meduza app.
✽ ✽ ✽
We prepared this publication with the participation of the Foundation Straight Foundationhelping to create uncensored nonfiction stories about Russia.
Ilya Venyavkin decided to study the life paths and ideological views of several public figures who played an important role in the process of transforming Russia from an unstable democracy in the early 1990s into a highly militarized and chauvinistic authoritarian state in the early 2020s. All materials for the book were collected from open sources – this is how the author shows that this transformation occurred right before our eyes.
Satirist Mikhail Zadornov, army general Sergei Surovikin, security officer Nikolai Patrushev, economist Elvira Nabiullina, priest Mikhail Vasiliev, philosopher Alexander Dugin, political strategist Timofey Sergitsev, media director Margarita Simonyan, blogger Andrei “Mores” Morozov – all these seemingly completely different people, with their outlooks, thoughts and actions, formed a demand A year that pushed the Kremlin to fatal decisions. Using the example of these nine people, Ilya Venyavkin shows where the origins of this strange religion of war lie, which has captured many minds and led modern Russian society to accept aggression against Ukraine.
This is what the author himself says about the “Temple of War”
This book was born from a painful question that has been haunting me and many people around me since February 2022: How did this war become possible? How could such a catastrophe – not only political, but also moral – occur in the country in which I grew up, studied and lived?
In search of an answer, he turned to the stories of nine people – representatives of different strata of Russian society: a military man, an official, a priest, a satirist, a philosopher, a journalist, a political strategist, a security official, a blogger. Each of them supported the invasion of Ukraine in their own way. Through their fates, I tried to show that war does not have one cause and one culprit. This is a web of personal choices that shape whether to support or not resist evil.
If you would like to support our publishing project, go to “Metaphor” – The book “Temple of War” is available there in paper and electronic form.