How Russians see us: Jesuit‐Russian relations then and now∗

Abstract

l, a newspaper priding itself on new-found objectivity. It told of the twilight adventure of a postsoviet journalist. Following a lead, he stumbled on a pack of Russian neo-fascists, their lair stuffed with weapons, dogs, swastikas and Mein KampJ, besides ubiquitous young men sporting the current rage among Muscovite machos - maskirovka (camouflage uniform). A common bat­ tle cry binds the squad: 'Thrash the Yids, the Reds and the Democrats!' Their main activity: organising 'work therapy' for the 'human debris' of today's poverty-ridden Moscow - the tramps whom they have lured to their 'territory' with promises of bread and shelter. Aleksei, a defender of Moscow's White House during the siege of October 1993 and a law graduate of Moscow State University, introduces himself as their 'Fyurer'. Innocently, he describes his 'orm' - a name derived, according to him, from the ancient Nordic peoples to define their 'veche' or public council. And what could this have to do the Society of Jesus? Allow friend Aleksei to explain: 'We're not a political party. We're rather a vintage Jesuit religious order.' Needless to say popular misconceptions of the Society of Jesus are rampant even among the well-educated fringe - historians, philosophers, sociologists - of postso­ viet society, who generally know very little about organised religion. Causes are the educational system and the reference books which accompanied the Soviet student from cradle to grave. The authoritative Slovar' sovremennogo russkogo yazyka (Dictionary of the Contemporary Russian Language), published in 1956 by the Soviet Academy of Sciences, offers its definition of 'Jesuit': 'a member of a Catholic monastic order, a militant ecclesiastical organisation, serving as a bulwark of the pope and reaction.'2 Quotations illustrating the word's usage follow. One is from the memoirs of Aleksandr Gertsen: 'Stroll through Cologne and look at the sturdy battle­ ments, the Romanesque churches and the College of the Jesuits, those sinister warrior monks guarding this frontier of papism and the Reformation.' Definitions of the word's derivatives iyezuitizm, iyezuitsky, iyezuitstvo and iyezuitstvovat' include hypocrisy, two-faced behaviour, craftiness, pretension and treachery. Nor did refer­ ence materials published under other communist regimes employ different ideologi­ cal cliches and socio-economic-political jargon, even when regimes quarrelled and sulked. The Soviet dictionary's Albanian counterpart defines the Jesuit even more compactly: ' ... njeri shume i djallezuar, i keq dhe i eger' Ca very devilish man, evil *This paper was originally delivered as a talk at Campion Hall, Oxford, in November 1994.