VOL. IV (XXI) 2009 - Departamentul de Filosofie si Stiinte ale ...

ADRIAN PĂCURAR 117
sacrifice for the collective purposes regardless the content of these
purposes. The crew of K – 141 was condemned from the moment when the
submarine was grounded at bottom of Barents Sea. We think that everybody
who was capable to understand what was going on was also able to
understand this. The entire scenario with public tears for the Media and the
“political will” to raise the Kursk were nothing else but pure hypocrisy from a
bunch of people who always knew how the things really are in the submarine
service of the Russian Navy.
But, if the acceptance of individual sacrifice is something deeply placed
in the soul of historical Russia the particular situation of Kursk tragedy is able
to uncover something more. The abandonment of the crew, because here
there could be no doubts, was not only a form through which that cult of
sacrifice can be illustrated but also a very strong and particular message of
power. If the cult of personal sufferance is deeply incorporated in the
people’s mind of historical Russia this is much more evident in the military
structures 6 . We have enough evidences, especially from the World War II,
when the soldiers of Red Army have done indeed things which for a western
army are pure and simply unthinkable. Therefore, we believe that the
Russian Navy approach during the Kursk drama was more than an exercise
of image. It was simply something which the Russians are use to do in a
natural manner in profound accord with their perception about the personal
sufferance, especially in the army.
So, we strongly believe that such a type of tragedies can not be judged
through a western mentality. It is completely wrong to assume that in that
particular case of the Kursk, but also in others cases like this which Russia
had indeed enough after the collapse of the Soviet Union, things can be
properly understood only through the basic conceptual frame of the PR
approach specific to western mentality.
Briefly, in conclusion, we may summarize our point of view, regarding
the way in which the Kursk drama was treated by Russia, in these terms: on
one hand we have the evident total failure from the PR perspective. This is
true in such an obvious mode that does not need further explanations. But,
on the other hand, there is the great tradition of the Russia’s military, the
tradition of self sacrifice for a collective purpose. This is something which
hardly can be conceptualized; it is just a reality which either you are able to
feel it either you are just not aware of it. These two conclusions may
ultimately lead us to this: the PR failure in the Kursk tragedy simultaneously
translate a form of tradition which is so specific to the Russian deep
collective mentality but also a very specific message of power. This kind of
message, we believe, was always very easy to detect and exploit by the
West, because it always was so obvious for a trained eye. This is the main
6 Even today there are still many unknown things about the loss of Kursk but
regardless this situation it is very obvious that Russian style of approach in dealing
with these tragedies could be always understood independently from the content of
the situation.