Neo-pagans as Anti-Semites: Jews as Evil

As in Europe, neo-paganism in Russia has tempted some to embrace anti-Semitism, albeit in an idiosyncratic fashion, often tempered with a peculiar philo-Semitism. This anti-Semitism is enmeshed in anti-Asianism, and the emphasis on race has moved neo-pagans to neo-Nazism of a sort. And, as for European Nazis and neo-Nazis, the Jews are one of the most important elements of their discourse.

The lingering interest in Nazism has also led neo-paganism into anti-Semitism. The predilection to anti-Semitism is not just a logical development of neo-paganism and coping with the Nazis, but is mostly due to the peculiar conditions in today's Russia. For the first time in Russian history, the regime combines Orthodoxy with implicit philo-Semitism. This combination can be seen in a visible part of the Russian middle class, for attachment to Orthodoxy does not necessitate anti-Semitism.

All this is quite different from imperial/tsarist Russia, where ethnic Russians who professed dedication to Orthodoxy mostly had quite conservative views and often engaged in anti-Jewish pogroms. The pogroms in many cases were inspired by the authorities – at least at the lower administrative levels – who proclaimed that the Jews were mortal enemies of both Orthodoxy and Orthodoxy's ‘little father’ – the tsar. These claims were supported by the fact that Jews had been part of all major opposition groups.

The tsarist authorities were also not much predisposed to most Muslim minorities. It was not accidental that during the Bolshevik Revolution not just most Jews but a substantial number of Muslims of various ethnic origins supported the Bolsheviks, who, at least in the beginning, were pro-minorities in general and saw in Russian nationalism and the Orthodox Church their sworn enemies. Just after assuming power, Lenin, taking advantage of the existing famine, shot a number of priests supposedly for resistance to confiscation of church valuables to feed the starving. In this period of later imperial and early Soviet Russia – at that time the Orthodox Church was a strong force – Orthodox Slavs, mostly ethnic Russians, and Jews and Muslims of various ethnic backgrounds were on opposite sides of the barricades.

The situation became quite different in Putin's time, and the political/ideological marriage of the regime was in a way unique, at least in Russian history. Putin's regime restored Orthodoxy to the official religion, the ideological prop of the state, if not de jure, at least de facto. At the same time – a crucial difference from the tsarist era – the regime demonstrated quite positive views on Judaism, Jews, and Israel. Just before leaving the presidency, Putin introduced a rabbi into the Russian army, which had not been the case since the 1917 collapse of the tsardom. Relationships with Israel were also rather good; Russia bought Israeli weapons and abolished visa requirements for citizens of either country who wished to visit the other.

This somewhat positive approach to the Jews – both in and outside the country – went along with a similar approach to Muslims. After the end of formal hostilities in Chechnya, Putin demonstrated a striking fondness for Chechen viceroy Ramzan Kadyrov, who increasingly behaved as an independent ruler and received an economic subsidy from Moscow that looked to many like tribute. Muslims and any people from the Caucasus – average Russians make little distinction among them regardless of their different languages, ethnicities, and religions – continued to dominate the Moscow markets and became visible in the Russian heartland, where they had never before been present in any considerable number.

These peculiar features of the regime – Orthodoxy, philo-Semitism, and a benign approach to Muslims, at least on a state level – created adverse feeling among pagan neo-Nazis who represented the views of a considerable number of Russian disenfranchised youth. They saw power in Russia as usurped by an unholy cabal of the Orthodox Church, Jews, and Muslims. These forces, despite their professed quibbles, were seen as interconnected and united in their drive to hold power over the Russians. And, in the view of at least some neo-pagans, they had a strong Asiatic streak. This fact explains a lot about the position of ethnic Russians in Russia. Aryan Russians see a state taken over directly or indirectly by naturally hostile Asiatics. And Jews have re-emerged as historical enemies.

Some people who attack the Jews as a clear manifestation of the enemies that have preyed on Russia from time immemorial are in a political/ideological limbo. On the one hand they see the past and present in a way similar to dissident bishop Diomid (Dzyuban), who regards current Orthodox leadership as anti-Christian. For them, Christianity is a great creed, and it is a blessing that Russia is a Christian country. The problem is that Christianity and the wholesome nature of the country are polluted and perverted. The conclusion is obvious: Russia should go back to its pristine Orthodox past.

These same individuals can also take quite a different approach, sounding much like neo-pagans. In this interpretation Christianity is evil and a source of Russia's problems. Criticism of Christianity is interwoven with criticism of Jews. Christianity, including Orthodox Christianity, is seen as a manifestation of Jewish influence or domination. The assumption that Jews and the Orthodox Church are close and possibly one entity seems confirmed by the presence of supposedly Jewish symbols in Orthodox churches. For example, in some churches one can see a Star of David. These are the churches that were vandalized, even blown up or burned.Reference Kozhevnikova¹

Thus, quite a few neo-pagans seem to believe that Orthodox Christians, Jews, and Asians of all types are actually one entity, and their supposed conflicts are a trick to deceive outsiders. These forces support the Russian state, which despite its name is then seen as deeply hostile to ethnic Russians.

While analyzing the views of neo-pagans on this subject, one should remember that they are not consistent and are often contradictory. Consider, for example, ‘Aleks,’ a participant in a web discussion. On the one hand ‘Aleks’ seems to follow Diomid's model: Russia was a wholesome Christian state whose soul became polluted by evil forces, Jews among them. Russia has been ‘Holy Russia’ ever since its conversion to Christianity. This, the nature of the Russian soul, survived even under the Mongols.

But, ‘Aleks’ believes, Christianization also brought Russia the destructive poisons of Byzantinism, and this was a global evil. He said the problems Russia has faced in the past and today are not entirely those of Russians. Byzantinism was the common enemy of both the West and Russia; its goal was to pollute the morals of all of them. These forces (he definitely implied the Jews)² also tried to incite and benefit from war between West and East. The Jews helped shape Byzantine traditions, which were invariably linked with Orthodoxy, so bringing Orthodoxy to Russia incorporated the germs of Byzantinism in Russia's political and spiritual body.

Byzantinism infiltrated Russian culture early on but was rather dormant; it was other forces that damaged Russia. The Mongols, despotic Asiatics, laid the foundation of the oppressive state, absolutely alien to the majority of the Russian people. ‘Aleks’ believes that the Russians lost their country not in the seventeenth century but much earlier, in the thirteenth century when they fell to the Mongols. Russia followed the example not of the Byzantines but of the Golden Horde, at least in the Middle Ages.³ The Mongols created the Russian state, as a country of Asiatic despotism.⁴ ‘Aleks’ states that the Russian state has been a repressive machine directed against the Russian people from the beginning of its existence. The Russian Church, integrated into the Russian state, and supposedly connected to Constantinople, was actually much closer to the Mongol rulers and prayed for them; the Byzantine influence in Russia was fleeting⁵ until the seventeenth century.

‘Aleks’ continues that ever since patriarch Nikon's time, Byzantinism has played an important role. Nikon destroyed the Old Believers, the people who had carried the banner of Holy Russia but finally degenerated. Peter I modernized and finally merged these traditions, blending Jewish Byzantinism with Mongolianism, both Asiatic and foreign to Russia. He created the tradition from which Russians suffer up to today.⁴

While influencing Russian culture and political tradition, at least indirectly, the Jews finally gained power after the Bolshevik Revolution and rule Russia up to the present. Since 1917, the Russians have been ruled by the ‘most mistreated nationality,’ an oblique reference to the Jews.⁵ ‘Aleks’ concludes that since the time of the Mongols, the Russian state has been foreign to Russians. Those who ruled Russia were not Russians at all, and Jews are among the repressive minorities who have been in control.

In this interpretation of past and present, ‘Aleks’ sounds Diomidian, seeing the restoration of pure Orthodoxy and the appropriate Orthodox arrangements as the way out of the Russian crisis. Purges of Jews are seen as an essential part of the play. But one aspect of his narrative incorporates criticism of Jews by quite a different paradigm. Here, Jews are criticized in connection with the rise of Christianity, a clear evil for all humanity, including Russia. Christianity represented the most debased part of humanity, with treachery as a hallmark. Christian bodyguards killed Julian Apostate, the last pagan emperor of ancient Rome and the last to preserve the noble doctrine of pagan antiquity.

Jews, because of their moral rottenness, saw in Christians kindred spirits and flocked to Christianity. ‘Aleks’ implies that Jews who became Christians were disgusting individuals, and that there were many such Christians in the late Roman Empire. Christians were nothing but Jews, and the Christianization of the Roman Empire was actually a coup d’état that brought Jews to the top of power. The Jews came to power because of their treachery and conniving and because their ideology pleased the masses.⁶

With Christianity a Jewish conspiracy and the Jews themselves part of a larger Asiatic plot, the historical process is seen as Russia's enslavement by Jews and other Asiatics. Byzantine Orthodoxy, the ideological framework of this enslavement, led to the spread of minorities who were ethnically foreign and actually hostile to Russians. Russia should go back to its pristine, pre-Mongolian, actually pre-Christian existence.

‘Aleks’ suggests that for at least some Russians, this model would mean shedding the ethnic enclaves and ending Russia's existence as an empire. But this plan is not practical. Russia's huge territory makes its imperial form the only solution. So Russia has no option but to move to Nazism as an ideology and way of life.⁴ ‘Aleks’ adds that his appeal to Nazism does not mean Russians should follow the German example in its totality. But they should follow it in one important aspect, and that is to force the minorities from the Russian land. Otherwise, the Russians will not survive.

This blended negative image of the Jews and Mongols can also be found in the comments of others who could be called neo-pagans. There is of course no uniformity in their views, but they can be defined as more neo-pagan than ‘Aleks.’ Indeed, connections between Christianity, Judaism, Orthodoxy, Byzantinism, and Asians have become a leitmotif in the narrative of quite a few pure pagans and provides a framework for an understanding of why Orthodox Christianity brought from Byzantium nothing that was good for ethnic Russians. Russians were seen as Aryans who were superior to Asiatics or crypto-Asiatics and their cultures and religions, including Christianity.

‘Kapitan’ points out that Russians are a ‘white Nordic race’ and he does not understand why this superior race needs the religion of ‘Asian cattle breeders,’ an oblique reference to Jews who were originally cattle breeders and are clearly seen as the people who produced Christianity.⁷

‘Rus’ follows suit and states that Christianity, including Orthodoxy, was mostly a religion of underdeveloped Asiatics. The reference to the Jews is clear; they are seen as Asiatics who at the same time actually launched Christianity and were blended with Christians. In any case, any form of Christianity is quite close to Judaism. Since Jews were Asiatic minorities in Europe, they tended to be close to the elite, alienated from the European masses, and catering to the elite's interests. This deep connection of the Jews to the oppressive elite explains why Christianity's original goal was to support the power of the ruler; and it only later became closer to the people.⁸ This was the case with the Christianity of Charlemagne's empire. Christianization led to crypto-Judaization and consequently Asiatization of Christian countries; this was, ‘Rus’ implied, especially so for the Orthodox. Logically, the domination of Orthodoxy in the Byzantine Empire led to the domination of Asiatics. Jews as Asiatics, Asiatics as Jews, and Christians supported or were even part of the ruling elites, a force absolutely foreign to the Aryan majority, the Europeans. This explains the Church's unbelievable brutality toward common folk. ‘Rus’ claims that the Christian Inquisition killed 25 million people.

This blending of Jews, Christians, Byzantines, and Asiatics in aggregate form as deeply hostile to naturally pagan Aryan Europeans, Russians among them, can also be found with other proponents of neo-paganism. ‘Dmitro Avtone’ argues that Christians and Jews in ancient times were the same. When they came to power, they dealt brutally with pagans, the true people of Europe. Christians and Jews, he says, employed the same tactics in Russia: Vladimir baptized the Kievan state by force. The people who lived in the territory of Moscow were no exception: baptized by force and treated brutally.

Another participant in the discussions, ‘Maliuta,’ implies that Byzantine Orthodoxy was actually Jewish, at least in spirit, as could easily be seen in the Byzantines’ preoccupation with trade and moneymaking. This could also be said of the present elite of the Russian Orthodox Church, which could well be Jewish, in both spirit and flesh.⁹ The fact that Christianity is Jewish is well known to current Russian ideologists. It is not what they want to tell the masses, so they appeal to Byzantinism to hide the fact that Christianity is a Jewish creation. Everything done by the Jews is harmful for Russians, ‘Maliuta’ concludes.¹⁰

The assumption that not only Christians but the Byzantine Greeks and even the late Romans were actually Jews in disguise is shared by other participants in the discussion. In their view, the fact that Byzantines and Christians are Jews explains a lot about their behavior. It explains the Byzantines’ greed – supposedly the Jews’ major attribute – but also their treachery and certain immoralities. That the first Christians were Jews explains their absolute amorality. This characteristic was important for the rulers, who loved those who were ready to condone their criminal acts. ‘Volk’ claims that Constantine killed his son. No pagan priest would cleanse him of this horrible crime; this was done by a Christian priest, which demonstrates how actually evil Christianity is.¹¹

Regardless who they were, the Jews were the mortal enemies of Russia; and Russia's suffering in the past and now can be attributed to the Jews, according to these participants. In some interpretations, Jews were separated from Byzantines and Orthodox and became the sole enemy of Russians, using them in their unholy geopolitics.

‘Kero Gaz’ notes that Russians were actually not very hostile to the Byzantines, who emerge as rather benign people. The Russians’ problems with Byzantines can be explained easily if we remember that the ancient Russians were not a free people. Russians were under the control of the Khazars, who pushed them to attack Constantinople, ‘Kero Gaz’ reminds those in the discussion. The Khazars were a Turkic people whose elite had professed Judaism and who in the early Middle Ages dominated a large segment of what is now European Russia and Ukraine. The fact that the Khazar elite professed Judaism made it possible for some Russian nationalist intellectuals, such as Lev Gumilev, to declare that the Khazars were Jews not in spirit, but in flesh, and that their domination over the Slavic natives was really horrendous.

‘Kero Gaz’ develops this line of thought, implying that the Khazarian Jewish yoke still holds Slavs in the former USSR: the Jews dominate Moscow and now Kiev.¹² He, of course, alludes to how President Viktor Yushchenko and the Ukrainian elite used philo-Semitism to show that Ukraine is part of the European world. This outrages ‘Kero Gaz’ because it proves that power in Kiev is now in the hands of Jews, as during the Khazar era. Sviatoslav, the Kievan prince who according to most historians destroyed the Khazar kingdom in the tenth century, did not destroy them completely.

In another interpretation, the Jews are as a distinct force in cahoots with other enemies of the European Aryan and historically pagan Russians. These people believe that regardless of other forces alien to Russian connections, the Jews have dominated Russia since time immemorial and were responsible for the fact that Russian history is nothing but a great tragedy for Russians. Russians have suffered throughout their history, and they cannot live happily unless they rise and pitilessly crush this many-headed beast.

‘Oleg’ from Munich points out that Russians were enslaved by several forces: the Byzantines and their Orthodox Church, the Mongols, and finally the Jewish Khazars. All these forces collaborated. While the Orthodox Church controlled Russians’ souls, the Mongols and Jews controlled their bodies. Although this unholy alliance started in the distant past, it continues to dominate Russians, making their life miserable. Moscow is the symbol/stronghold of these oppressive forces, and without its destruction Russians’ liberation is impossible. ‘Oleg’ from his distant Germany predicts the end of the whorish capital with all the zeal of the ancient Jewish prophets that cursed Babylon: ‘Let be cursed Byzantines and the Horde; let their heirs fall down. Moscow is a whorish fagot empire (imperastiia), which sits on seven hills and is drunk on the blood of the Russian people.’¹³ This heir of the historical alien oppressors of the Russian people, an absolute moral abomination, should be totally destroyed, ‘Oleg’ believes. The destruction of Judaism, Orthodoxy, and the traditions of the Byzantines and Mongols is essential for liberation, and also possible. At least, it was successfully done in the past.

A contributor called ‘Svetoslav’ blasts ‘Kike-type Orthodoxy’ (zhido-pravoslavie), which came from the Byzantines, and praises the pagan prince Sviatoslav who destroyed Jewish Khazaria.¹⁴ This anti-Semitism, peculiarly interwoven with anti-Christian and anti-state feelings in the form of anti-Byzantinism and anti-Asianism, is a peculiar aspect of Russian paganism.

Anti-Semitism as Philo-Semitism

The anti-Semitic statements of pagans (and of course not only them) faces criticism by some participants in the discussion, who argue that brazen anti-Semitism would lead Russians nowhere. ‘Andriukha’ advocates that one should make a difference between Russian patriots, such as General Lev Yakovlevich Rokhlin, and anti-Russian scoundrels, such as Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky. He despises the idiots who hailed Hitler's invasions simply because Hitler wanted to kill Jews. Russia was, in general, ruled by Russians, with a few exceptions, such as Batu, the Mongol conqueror of Russia, and the Bolsheviks of Lenin's time.¹⁵

These rational or at least semi-rational arguments against anti-Semitism are not dominant in the narratives where pagans play a considerable role. Abandoning anti-Semitism is not the result of understanding that explaining all Russia's problems as caused by conniving Jews and other ethnic minorities is absurd. The point is that anti-Semitism develops into its opposite. In some cases, extreme anti-Semitism transforms Jews into an ever-present, powerful people with unusual abilities, a sort of super-humans. This transformation is not the mere result of a logical evolution of anti-Semitism, or to be attributed to direct borrowing from the Nazis, who also demonized Jews and transformed them into a power almost similar to the Aryans. The current transformation of Jews into a force equal to that of the Aryans could well be attributed to post-Soviet realities.

Even during the late Soviet era, from the late 1940s to 1985, when the Jews were officially discriminated against and popular anti-Semitism had implicit official blessing, the populace regarded them as a cunning and smart people. Their ability to emigrate to the West – a rare privilege shared with other minorities such as Germans – was envied, for the West, terra incognita for the vast majority of Soviets, was seen as a place of plenty and the easy life. Information about the vagaries of capitalism, e.g. unemployment and absence of free education and medical services, was seen as just Soviet propaganda.

This mixed hatred and respect became much stronger during the post-Soviet era. A good number of post-Soviet nouveaux riches were Jews who amassed enormous fortunes and, in the view of many Russians, became the actual rulers of the country. This was especially the case with Boris Berezovsky, who had great influence on Yeltsin. It is true that Putin pushed some of these Jewish tycoons into exile (Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky) or imprisonment (Mikhail Khodorkovsky). But in the minds of Russian anti-Semites this was hardly the end of Jewish domination. Such Jewish tycoons as Roman Abramovich, well-connected with Berezovsky and the entire Yeltsin ‘family,’ continued to be at Putin's right hand, and did not suffer during the transition from Putin to Medvedev. In this situation, quite a few Russian anti-Semites concluded that Jews are indestructible and all-powerful and have dominated the globe through most of history.

The Byzantine Empire was no exception. ‘Stas’ claims that there was neither a Roman nor a Byzantine Empire, at least as presented in history books. The real Byzantium was just the city of Constantinople, taken by the Jews. Moses brought these people there and called it the ‘Promised Land.’ The promised land and life were indeed great for Jews: they sat in a city surrounded by impregnable walls and collected tributes from every traveler. Jews also played a crucial role in Russian history. ‘Stas’ concludes that Russia was not an Orthodox but a Catholic country, at least during Ivan III's rule, and implicitly Jewish. The Jews’ role in Russia had been especially clear in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Moscow was taken by the Cossacks, Jews who were expelled from their tribes and became bandits. Later, they took over Russia and became tsars.¹⁶

‘Stas’ insists that all these ‘facts’ are not speculation but taken from the works of people of great erudition and ironclad logic. He refers, for instance, to Boris Siniukov, the author of the Logical History of the Development of Civilization on Earth (Logicheskaia istoriia razvitiia tsivilizatsii na zemle) and The Mysterious Russian Soul in the Framework of Jewish History (Zagadochnaia russkaia dusha na fone evreisikoi istorii). Some of this work is published on the internet: http.//www.borsint.narod.ru.¹⁶

Since Jews were present throughout history, including Russian history, Russians should not see them as an absolutely alien race. Russians should understand that they have a lot of Jewish blood. Jews are very smart people, and many Russian women engaged in sexual relationships with them, attracted by male intelligence. Similar peculiar mixtures of anti-Semitism and admiration of Jews as super-humans can be found in commentaries of other participants in the discussion.

In the views of other observers, Russian history is nothing but Jewish history, for Jews in various disguises have dominated Russia since the beginning. ‘Kudrev,’ most likely a Ukrainian, proclaims it was the Jews who spread Orthodoxy in Russia in the ninth century. They paid the author of Chronicles to present them as Greeks.¹⁶ Thus Orthodoxy is clearly a cover for Jewish domination or, at least an implicit manifestation of Jewish rule. Since Orthodoxy helped the Jews spread their domination all over Russia, Jews were in favor of spreading Christianity from the capital to the outskirts of Russia. They founded Orthodox monasteries as a way to ensure their control over Russia.

While the Jews ruled medieval Russia in disguise, they continued to have a purely Jewish state in Eurasia. This was, of course, Khazaria. ‘Kudrev’ rejects the notion that Khazaria had been destroyed by Prince Sviatoslav in the tenth century. In his view, as argued on the internet, the Khazarian Jewish stronghold did not disappear until the fourteenth century.¹⁶ Jews not only hid themselves under the cloak of Russian Orthodox monks but were the protagonists of all major events in world and Russian history from the Middle Ages to the present. The logic behind this assumption seems to be as follows. First, Jews dominated the Russian state directly or indirectly almost from the very beginning. Second, Jews were a dominant global force. The conflict between Russia and its enemies, including nomadic ones, was just a conflict between various groups of Jews, ‘Kudrev’ determines.

This vision of Russian history as nothing but conflict between various groups of Jews is in a way unique. It can hardly be found in the works of previous Russian anti-Semitic writers, even less in the works of German Nazis, where global and Russian history were seen as a constant conflict between Orthodox Russians/pagan Aryans – in the Nazi version – and Jews.

Another aspect of the image of the Jews is their appearance as a bellicose nation, a nation of cunning manipulators but also of warriors. This peculiar image of Jews, both past and present, is also due to conditions in post-Soviet Russia. With the end of official anti-Semitism, any sense of Jewish solidarity disappeared in post-Soviet Russia; and groups of tycoons – e.g. Gusinsky and Berezovsky – struggled with each other for power and money. Another image of the Jews that influenced the Russian public was that of mighty Israel that had successfully fought the superior Arab forces.

All these images led Russian anti-Semites to an odd construction of the past, in which both Russia and the world around it are Jewish. The conflict between Russia and its enemies was one between various groups of Jews, many of them quite powerful. ‘Kudrev’ sees the medieval Russia/Kievan state as directly or indirectly dominated by Jews. Those who fought them were also Jews, as were the Pechenegs and Polovtsy, Turkic nomadic tribes who harassed Russians as well as Tatars and Mongols.

The fact that Mongols/Tatars/Pechenegs and Russian ‘bogatyri’ were Jews (in ‘Kudrev’'s view) does not mean that they lived in peace, and ‘Kudrev’ implicitly denies the notion of Jewish solidarity. He anticipates questions of skeptics who might argue that neither ferocious Mongol warriors nor mighty ‘bogatyri’ fit the image of Jews. One should not follow the stereotype of Jews as weak and unable to fight, he claims. Jews are a serious enemy, and one should praise Bogdan Khmelnitsky's followers because they decimated the Jews. ‘Kudrev’ of course points out that the seventeenth-century Khmelnitsky-led uprisings against the Poles were accompanied by horrific Jewish pogroms in Ukraine.

The story was somewhat different at the beginning of the seventeenth century. At that time, West European Jews tried to take over from East European Jews who controlled Russia at the time. The ‘Time of Troubles’ was thus a conflict between Jews from East and West Europe. The Eastern Jews won, but the Western Jews were finally victorious in 1917.¹⁶ The Soviet regime was the domination of Western European Jews over Russia. Thus, Jews, implicitly related to other minorities, were the major force that dominated Russia from the dawn of history to the present. These Jews and other minorities in alliance with Orthodoxy made the life of ordinary Russians – wholesome Aryan people – unbearable. Even those who do not completely support neo-paganism still see the minorities and, implicitly, the Jews, as a problem for the Byzantines, viewed here in a positive light, and the Russian state.

All Ethnic Minorities as a Problem

For some of the participants in the discussion, Jews and related Asiatic peoples were the major problem for Russians, in fact, for all European Aryan people. For others, any minority, any loss of ethnic homogeneity is detrimental. The participants in the discussion, quite a few apparently neo-pagans, approach the Byzantine Empire and its collapse, the major subject of Tikhon's movie, from this perspective. They look at the Byzantine empire as basically a benign political and social institution, the death of which was related to the loss of ethnic pursuits.

For some, the major reason for the collapse of the empire was the loss of its ethnic homogeneity. The problem with the Byzantine Empire was not that it had lost its Orthodox purity but that the empire was not a mono-ethnic state and included many minorities. According to some observers, it was an ‘Armenian-Greek’ state, and its people thought about nothing but money. Such a state could not be stable, and it was not surprising that it fell under the pressure of ‘people-warriors.’¹⁷ Other observers share similar ideas. The major reason for the collapse of the empire was that it had lost its ethnic cohesiveness and become much polluted by minorities.¹⁸

Therefore, disenfranchised members of Russian society who watched Tikhon's history of the Byzantine Empire believe it sent a potent signal for the fate of the Russian state. Russia, in their view, is in danger of disappearing, or exists in its present form, solely as a state deeply foreign to the interests of the majority of Russians. For some, salvation would lie in the return to true Christian roots; for others, neo-Nazis and neo-pagans, it would be the return to the pre-Christian past, and a de-Asiatization. The Jews – with other Asiatics, whatever the term might be in context – should be purged from Russia.

All these views imply that the return to what those that hold them regard as true Russia is a difficult enterprise. Still, some of them do not regard it as entirely impossible. They imply that if this happened, Russia would re-emerge as the country of Russian people and be a prosperous state. Still, for some Russian intellectuals who appeal to the history of the Byzantine Empire, in connection with Tikhon's movie or on other occasions, Russia has no hope. Russia will perish because all empires perish sooner or later.