Director Ivo Briedis: “There is a percentage of people who will always feel that they need a ‘hard hand’ or simple rules, because democracy only complicates everything.”
Photo: Aija Kaukule
Aija Kaukule, “Latvijas Avīze”, JSC “Latvijas Mediji”
Director and screenwriter Ivo Briedis and journalist Rita Ruduša, both born in the USSR, are looking for answers to the questions in the new documentary “Homo Sovieticus” whether the Soviet Union is really over and whether its “products” of social engineering – Soviet people or “homo sovieticus” are still between us and ourselves. Premiere – today, August 23.
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2021 marks the 30th anniversary of the collapse of the USSR empire, but the filmmakers note that in recent years both the symbols of totalitarian power and the re-emergence of the historical story of the Soviet empire have been revived.
“This is not so much a film to educate young people about the Soviet era, but a personal call to the audience for self-reflection, judging by the heritability of totalitarian thinking, recognizing the Soviet person. The fact that we do not have totalitarianism at the moment is not self-evident, we have to be awake, we must follow whether we can recognize its seedlings, ”said director Ivo Briedis in the conversation on the eve of the premiere.
The premiere of the film was planned in the spring, it has already started its international journey – it will be shown in Prague, it will be shown in Romania, but the date of Latvia’s premiere has been chosen on August 23, which we know as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Is it deliberately?
I. Elk: The film was ready last November, but due to limitations, we decided that this was not the time and that the film needed a better context. So it is – on August 23, with the pact, the Berlin Wall, in the background. In November, it seemed, to wait, it seemed that political regimes would change in some countries – especially in Russia, something seemed to be swelling. However, nothing matured there, but it is now even worse in Belarus.
“Homo sovieticus” is a sarcastic designation of the Russian Soviet writer Alexander Zinoviev to the so-called Soviet man, attributing to him a certain set of qualities – inert, individually irresponsible, accepting power, but silently fermenting against it. In your film, you are looking for this Soviet man in the then and modern society, also in yourself. Did you identify?
Indeed, there is a great deal of wording and it is easy to get caught up in it. We ourselves were concerned about quoting Zinoviev in the film. At the beginning of the book, “homo sovieticus” is an object of sarcasm, but then he is proud of it, in the end he becomes “homo sovieticus” himself – he returns to Russia after exile in Germany.
The creature he describes is also changeable – it is not a specific person, but a type of living creature that has contracted this special “homo sovieticus” virus, which is much more poisonous than the flu, alcoholism or drug addiction, because it cannot be got rid of. Zinoviev studied it and fell ill with it, remaining in the memories of many liberal people as a very reactionary character.
In the film we came to the conclusion that there is no single “homo sovieticus” formula.
Rather, we invite the viewer to look at whether there is something of a “homo sovieticus” and how to deal with it.
In the film, we can trace how, following the impetus of the journalist Ingus Bērziņš, you looked for people today who, as young people, expressed Vladimir Pozner 25 years ago, whether they want to keep the Soviet Union. They came from different Soviet countries – Azerbaijan, Russia, Armenia, the Czech Republic, each with a slightly different attitude. But what is your interest in talking about this Soviet person in relation to Latvia at the moment?
It can be said that in Latvia this theme of the Soviet man does not only belong to the Soviet period, because perhaps its roots go back to the past, remembering the so-called gene of the Latvian servant or talking about the heritage of naturalism. However, I have not heard people refer to homemaking as something positive and repeatable, but I have heard people do so in Soviet times.
In the minds of many, however, the Soviet era is quite a bright period, such nonsense is expressed – “we were all brothers” or “we lived in equality”.
The second thing is the recent past. There are people who in some way influence their descendants by saying that thank God or, on the contrary, unfortunately, the Soviet era is over. Somehow this Soviet discourse is in people’s minds – even in young people.
The film states that the division “they are power, we are the people” is relevant to the Soviet man…
Yes, it is typical. And this division of “they are power, and we are the rest” is dangerous. It is an absolute misunderstanding of the system in which we are currently trying to live. For such people, democracy is ‘just so-called’, such as a slander – they do not understand the solidarity of a society in which we are each, however, political people.
To the ancient Greeks, the apolitical or non-political man was an idiot, and I could actually say something similar. Not everyone needs to be in Parliament as delegated Members, but we have the opportunity to be involved in politics. Take responsibility for what happens.
This disclaimer is what I see every day and it is not very pleasant to look at.
It is probably this “sovieticus” who comes from a time when there was only one party under the constitution and, as the Communists will decide, it will be, the rest of us do not have to stir there. And in the minds of many it is still so.
The separation of government and people is currently being pushed by the populists with enormous power to raise political capital, and for a moment it even seems to be working. Why?
Because it’s easier. As historian Anne Aplbauma says in our film, there is a percentage of people who will always feel the need for a ‘hard hand’ or simple rules, because democracy only complicates things.
These people will be used by these loud people or populists.
If there is a simple recipe “they are power, we are ordinary”, then it is easy to criticize power, but do not sneak inside it, because it means putting your head out of the ambrazura and becoming a victim of something. People think that these “charismatics” or populists are the ones who will represent them in some way. But this seeming simplicity ultimately leads to either fascism or other forms of totalitarianism.
The main question we need to ask is whether we want it. Maybe, however, try to live in complexity and not get caught up in extremes. The extremes of the liberal end also become fascist at some point, at least the same “cancel culture”.
As our German expert says in the film – the extreme left and right meet at one point, because in both force law – who is not with us, they are against us. It is dangerous.
Hanna Ārente, a researcher of totalitarianism, saw similarities between Soviet and Nazi totalitarianism. Lev Gudkov, interviewed in the film, points out that “homo sovieticus” is the one who has learned to live with repressive structures, but Arente says more – totalitarianism is absorbed into a person and he becomes its agent. Isn’t homo sovieticus the product of any totalitarian power?
No doubt. This phenomenon is broader, although it is called ‘homo sovieticus’ and is linked to geography and specific history. Zinoviev also writes about it – “homo sovieticus” does not belong to a particular nation or country, it is a phenomenon that can be found anywhere in the world. He is a cunning creature who will always use the situation selfishly.
“Homo sovieticus” can be traced back to Trotsky’s first social engineering product – a revolutionary romantic who was willing to sacrifice his life for revolution, but over time he transformed into something else – the polished “homo sovieticus” of the post-war period, including Brezhnev’s time. which interests us more.
A cunning survivor who has mastered mimicry, not necessarily counsels, but has learned to live with a repressive apparatus. Today, the information isolation that existed in the Soviet Union has been removed, we seem to have the opportunity to get an education, but the craziest copy is appearing – ‘post sovieticus’. Although you can get information, understand, you voluntarily choose not to understand, not to accept. This voluntary choice is much more dangerous.
Is there a difference between the passionate people of the West led by the ideas of communism and these post-Soviet two-faced, inert “sovieticus”? In the film, we see that supporters in Europe are joining Russia’s motorcycle propaganda march “Immortal Regiment”.
These people you mentioned are probably different from the ones we talked about at the beginning. However, there is a connection between them. They are also characterized by a selective choice of history or knowledge. Maybe some part has a certain romance about redness, and maybe it doesn’t turn into anything as a result.
However, perhaps what they are maturing there is dangerous.
One hundred years ago, the same movements with very similar slogans ended with the horrors of the Soviet Union or China’s Mao era, which people in the West do not like to remember, speak only of the dangers of Nazism. Radical left-wing totalitarianism is still viewed through pink glasses.
In Europe, populists are more often associated with the right.
Yes, but the far right and left find the common denominator very well. In Germany, the parties, the left-wing Die Linke and the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, are extremely similar. Also in Latvia. The rhetoric of the far right is like one-on-one with the heirs of communism – change a few words, flags, but the way of thinking is absolutely the same – it is totalitarian thinking.
Putin, Orban – both have very sympathetic figures, hosts in their own country. And the right ones themselves are not aware that they are these “homo sovieticus”, not “homo latviensis” (Latvian man).
Reflection on the Soviet era is still present in your work, the most striking example is the script of the Latvian forest brothers’ story “Red Forest”, also the animated film “Swallow toads”.
I graduated from school in 1986 and at that time I was one of those romantics who thought that the end of the Soviet Union was inevitable, although I was the only one in the class, at least openly. I think it is extremely important to talk about things or currents in people that can be called nations’ self-confidence – I do not want to go in the direction of Nazism, but to talk about the relatively short Soviet period, fifty years, was a crippling time that is fundamentally damaged a lot.
It changed the whole social structure, people’s thinking is so messy that it is very difficult to get back some structure. And then we demand simplicity and a strong hand, which would be an alternative to the Soviet hard hand, only ours.
Themes
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