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12.12.07
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A Democrat's Legacy
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By Yelena Biberman
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Anatoly Sobchak Trained Many of Russia's Current Leaders
At the corner of the Peter the Great’s Fontanka Canal and Nevsky Prospekt in tsarist St. Petersburg, stood an opulent imperial palace which, shortly after the 1917 Revolution, became a Bolshevik bastion in Lenin’s Petrograd – the district headquarters of the Communist Party. Its rouge fa?ade still shines today, but in Vladimir Putin’s St. Petersburg, the palace now houses a low-profile Putin project – a museum devoted to Russian democracy named after St. Petersburg’s first mayor, Anatoly Sobchak.
The Anatoly Sobchak Museum of the Establishment of Democracy in Modern Russia is seldom open and, according to museum staff, receives only about 150 visitors a month. Several locals appeared to have no knowledge of the museum’s existence, never having noticed the golden sign near the entrance since 2003.
The museum, which is stowed away on the second floor of the palace, maintains exhibits devoted almost entirely to Sobchak. His personal belongings and photographs are interspersed with a few artifacts or images from the major events leading up to and after the fall of the Soviet Union. The book of visitors is filled with comments from ordinary citizens, foreigners and Russian celebrities. It opens with the hopeful remarks of popular Russian comedian, Gennady Hazanov, who describes Sobchak as “today’s symbol that Russia has a chance to become a prosperous democratic country.”
In a glossy brochure, the museum’s curator, Sobchak’s widow, Lyudmila Narusova, explains that the museum’s goal “is to promote the development of objective judgments of events, the formation of an active civic stand and the nurturing of a democratic and political culture within society.” No small task for a small museum, especially one that exists in such obscurity.
Romancing perestroika
As one of the leading politicians of the first-wave democratic movement in Russia, Sobchak was a monumental figure. He challenged the political foundations of his time and presented a clear alternative in a manner that was, above all, timely. His 95 Theses were countless public speeches that sparked feelings of hope and faith in Western democracy for his audience.
“Sobchak belongs to the pleiad of the romantic politicians of the late 1980s who genuinely believed in the new democratic values that they proclaimed. Unlike individuals like Boris Yeltsin, who merely used democratic slogans to seize power, Sobchak embodied democracy,” said Andrei Zverev, an associate professor of social communications and technologies at the Russian State University for the Humanities.
Born in the far eastern Siberian city of Chita into a Polish-Russian family, Sobchak was a classic example of the Soviet intelligentsia. He earned a law degree at Leningrad State University and, before being elected as an independent candidate into the Congress of People’s Deputies in 1989, headed the Common Law in Socialist Economics Department at Leningrad State University. There, he was very popular among law students and formed close relations with the administrator of international affairs, Vladimir Putin.
Sobchak gained national prominence in the Congress of People’s Deputies, one of Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms. One of the few deputies with a legal background, he made a significant contribution to the laws conceived between 1989 and 1991, and, in 1993, became one of the architects of the new Russian Constitution. “In the late 1980s, during his speeches at the Congress of People’s Deputies, people could not leave their television screens,” St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko said at the opening of Sobchak’s monument in June 2006. “Anatoly Sobchak had the rare gift of an orator. He spoke in such a way that took one’s breath away. And in August of 1991, after Sobchak’s speech, when St. Isaac’s Square was completely full, not one person doubted that democracy in Russia is forever.”
Sobchak investigated Soviet troops’ handling of anti-Soviet protestors in Tbilisi during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in April 1989. The investigative commission was the first of its kind, and it conducted the only successful parliamentary review in Russia so far, according to Sergei Stankevich, a former Yeltsin adviser. Sobchak held top military officials responsible for the 16 dead and hundreds wounded in the Tbilisi tragedy. In Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Stankevich said that the tension surrounding the investigation reached its peak when Sobchak called two members of the Politburo, one of whom was also a representative of the KGB, to testify. When the KGB officer took the stand, Sobchak confronted him in a now-famous exchange, saying “From now on, you will have to get used to people not being afraid of you.”
A dual legacy
Perestroika created unique career opportunities for members of the intelligentsia, said Vasily Zorin, a specialist in psychological profiles of politicians at Chelyabinsk State University. “Political capital such as education and expertise gains significant importance only when the other types of political capital, such as material wealth, are limited,” Zorin said. “In the late 1980s, the government lost its grip of the material resources needed to exercise real control over society. A vacuum developed and was soon filled, in part, by the intelligentsia. However, this ‘demand’ vanished as soon as the government achieved some economic power. I don’t think that Sobchak would fit into today’s political arrangement.”
Sobchack’s democratic grandiosity has no place in the today’s Russia where stability is corner stone of political rhetoric, said Zverev, the social communications professor. Too many Russians remember the chaos and lawlessness of the 1990s. “At this time, Russia needed a tougher leader who could realize his personal vision for creating order, and this leader became Putin. Romantic politics were put back on the back burner,” Zverev said.
But as Russia enters its next election cycle in 2011, Zverev said the tone of the rhetoric will shift away from stability to the benefits of such economic and political stability for the larger part of Russia’s population. “The current elections are just beginning to frame Russia’s future political discourse,” Zverev said. “Addressing the questions regarding the country’s identity and direction will be up to the 2012 candidates. Then, politician-romantics may play an important role because they can bring new ideas to the table. I think that then many of Sobchak’s ideas will be in demand.”
There are also those who are critical of Sobchak and his overall contribution to Russian politics. Instead of thinking of Sobchak in terms of his historical role, Alexander Duka, head of the Institute of Sociology at the Russian Academy of Sciences, suggests thinking of Sobchak in terms of his influence on the political events of the late 1980s and early 1990s. He said times of political transformation often provide platforms for the meteoric rise of ebullient figures, who then quickly plummet into obscurity.
“Unlike his deputy [Putin], Sobchak was too much of an outsider of the Russian nomenklatura. But this was mostly because of his personality, which included arrogance and the lack of a commanding spirit,” Duka said. “In everything else, he was quite system-defined: leaning from the very beginning of his career as St. Petersburg mayor on those who came from the nomenklatura and the force structures, as well as being susceptible to corruption and negligent of the laws and the democratic principles.”
In his list of Sobchak’s oversights, Duka highlighted the politician’s role in weakening democratic organizations and representative bodies, particularly in St. Petersburg, the increased centralization of the bureaucracy and the establishment of a “new post-Soviet system of corruption.”
The dichotomy of Sobchak’s legacy – on the one hand, as a principled democrat; on the other, as a corrupt hypocrite – echoes the controversy that he evoked toward the end of his political career. As Tatyana Protafenko, Sobchak’s adviser during his second mayoral campaign, pointed out, Sobchak was one of those politicians who was either loved or hated. Few remained neutral to his persona. “It was remarkable to see the results of the polls,” Protafenko said. “Those who were fond of him and those who disliked him were almost evenly divided, and so we knew that Sobchak’s victory in his second mayoral campaign would be a challenge.” It is one thing to work on a campaign for someone like Matviyenko, who generally evokes in people either positive or neutral feelings. It was quite another when you know that a large number of people will show up at the polling stations just to vote against your candidate, Protafenko said.
Sobchak, the mentor
After Sobchak’s defeat in the 1996 mayoral elections, many of his prot?g?s became part of the Moscow establishment. Some of Sobchak’s most notable pupils include Dmitry Medvedev, Alexei Kudrin, German Gref, Dmitry Kozak, Alexei Miller, Anatoly Chubais, Igor Sechin, Viktor Ivanov and, of course, Vladimir Putin.
Protafenko points out that, if not for Sobchak’s defeat in the 1996 mayoral campaign, these individuals would not have ascended to the Russian political Olympus at such a propitious time.
In the museum’s final room hangs a photograph taken on the day of Sobchak’s funeral in February 2000.
A portrait of a mournful Putin, grasping the hands of Sobchak’s widow at Sobchak’s funeral in 2000, hangs in the final hall of the museum. Narusova’s face is completely covered by a black scarf and her head rests on Putin’s shoulder. The raw and childlike expression of sadness on Putin’s face leaves no doubt that he has been powerfully touched by his mentor.
“Sobchak, without a doubt, influenced Putin,” says Olga Kryshtanovskaya, director of the Moscow-based Center for the Study of Elites at the Russian Academy of Sciences. “This is why Putin is so paradoxical – a communist, a Chekist and a democrat all in one.”
Indeed, no in-depth study of Putin can afford to omit an analysis of Sobchak’s ideas. “There are times when the country achieves a leader who can unite the nation and overcome its challenges through people’s trust in him. It’s especially important to have such a leader at a time of major challenges and changes,” wrote Sobchak in his 1995 book “There Once Was a Communist Party.” He admitted that even after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian public was still drawn to “equalization and a strong arm as the head of government.” However, as Sobchak later explains in his book: “Five years of calm life, and Russia will stand before the world as an entirely different country: dynamically developing, open to new ideas and completely free of the communist dogmas and illusions.”
Even though five years may now appear to be an understatement to him, Putin has no doubt absorbed and reinterpreted some of Sobchak’s ideas. Putin has, in some ways, become the very leader that Sobchak had prescribed for Russia by uniting the people through their trust in him and taking the country through turbulent times, although through an authoritarian approach. Being inside the Sobchak museum sometimes seems like visiting the corner of Putin’s brain devoted to democracy.
The Democrat and the debutante
Today, part of Sobchak’s legacy lives on, not in the political sphere, but in the party pages of Russian gossip rags. Sobchak’s daughter, Ksenia, with her untamed personality and lavish lifestyle, has become one of Russia’s most popular young celebrities. Some call her the Russian Paris Hilton.
In one issue of the glossy Russian magazine, MINI, designed for women between the ages of 20-something, those who “live to the maximum,” Ksenia outlined the principles by which she lives. “Don’t overdo it” and “Be a good loser” top the list. These lessons she may have learned directly from her father. One principle that stands out, however, is “Always conform.” Ksenia explained: “I don’t like it very much when I am called Ksenia Anatolievna. I feel strange, and immediately realize that I have to conform to this proud title.”
Most experts agree that no matter how hard she tries to conform, Ksenia's public image does not make a positive contribution to Anatoly Sobchak’s memory. “The popularity of Sobchak’s daughter Ksenia validates the suspicions of her father’s corruption,” Kryshtanovskaya said. “Where did her luxurious lifestyle come from? Where did a house on Rublyovka [the most notoriously upscale district in Russia] come from? These ‘poor’ democrats, it seems, were not so poor after all. In general, I think that Ksenia Sobchak does not contribute to a good image of her father.”
Last year Ksenia appeared on the Russian television show “100 Questions for an Adult,” where children grill famous Russians about their careers and personal lives. In accordance with the show’s tradition, Ksenia was given the chance to ask the children some questions. “Who are your heroes?” she asked her young audience. To her dismay, many children replied with something like “No one; I am my own hero;” one even named Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the infamous leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR). After much discussion on the show about Ksenia’s father, it did not occur to anyone to name him, even if only to indulge the starlet.
Hearts, minds and headstones
Seven years since his death, Sobchak is not the national hero of a prosperous democratic nation. He is remembered mostly on anniversaries, such as this year, his 70th birthday. His memory is limited to a few rooms on the Fontanka and those who still believe in a democratic Russia.
A portrait of John F. Kennedy hangs on one of the museum’s walls. It was signed in 1992 by a Kennedy family member with the words: “To Anatoly Sobchak, whose tireless defense of democracy is a Profile in Courage for the Russian people.” These words are a far cry from the inscription on Sobchak’s bronze monument erected on June 12, 2006 on St. Petersburg’s Vasilievsky Island with the sentence: “To Anatoly Alexandrovich, who gave back the name to the city.” For many, Sobchak has faded into history, and his legacy consists of nothing more than renaming Leningrad. But while the country he left behind has not, at least for now, become a shrine to Western democracy, there is still room in it for a small museum devoted to a democrat. |
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