beyondukraine.euandrussiainsearchofanewrelation

EU-Russia: What Went Wrong? 39
topics, Putin also spoke about themes with a social and even a
moral dimension: “We can see how many of the Euro-Atlantic
countries are actually rejecting their roots, including the Christian
values that constitute the basis of Western civilisation. They are
denying moral principles and all traditional identities: national,
cultural, religious and even sexual. They are implementing
policies that equate large families with same-sex partnerships,
belief in God with the belief in Satan” 19 .
Putin reiterated many similar arguments also in the speech to
the Federal Assembly on 12 December 2013, which contains these
significant words:
We know that there are more and more people in the world who
support our position on defending traditional values that have
made up the spiritual and moral foundation of civilisation in
every nation for thousands of years: the values of traditional
families, real human life, including religious life, not just
material existence but also spirituality, the values of humanism
and global diversity. Of course, this is a conservative position.
But speaking in the words of Nikolai Berdyaev, the point of
conservatism is not that it prevents movement forward and
upward, but that it prevents movement backward and downward,
into chaotic darkness and a return to a primitive state 20 .
On the basis of these indications the discussed Minister of Culture
Vladimir Medinsky drafted a document entitled Materials and
proposals for a project of the bases of a cultural policy of the
state, which can be considered a kind of document of the new
ideological orientation of Putin’s Russia. This document rejects,
for example, the western principles of multiculturalism and
tolerance.
Without denying the right of any nation to preserve its
ethnographic identity, we consider unacceptable the imposition
of values alien to the Russian society. No reference to ‘creative
freedom’ and ‘national identity’ cannot justify a behavior
19 Vladimir Putin Meets with Members the Valdai International Discussion Club. Transcript of
the Speech and Beginning of the Meeting, http://valdaiclub.com/politics/62880.html.
20 http://news.kremlin.ru/transcripts/19825.