In a post-industrial society that finds its driving force in non-border and homologating capitalism, is there still room to believe in something that is not a hedonistic desire for emancipation?  I start from a question that might seem distant from the story narrated by Fyodor Telkov in his evocative photographic series that focuses on the existence of Old Believers, and which gives me the inspiration for these brief considerations.

For those unfamiliar with their history, it is worth recalling summarily. The Old Believers make their appearance in Russia with the introduction of Christianity. In the beginning, they are known as Orthodox Christians, but following the religious schism initiated by Patriarch Nikon in 1652, they begin to be persecuted, tortured and killed. They are labeled as heretics, old ritualists and are forced to flee to escape death. However in the Urals region, as Telkov testifies, they find a sort of refuge, where they can preserve their traditions and nurture their beliefs. Here there is a need for workers in the mines and their workforce becomes the entry ticket to survival.

© Fyodor Telkov from the series ''Right to Believe'

© Fyodor Telkov from the series 'Right to Believe'

© Fyodor Telkov from the series 'Right to Believe'

© Fyodor Telkov from the series 'Right to Believe'

© Fyodor Telkov from the series 'Right to Believe'

In Telkov's photographs, we find a mystical dimension made up of subtle gestures, suspended faces, and we see the precariousness and fragility of spiritual practice. The landscape itself is elusive, cold, difficult. Yet we find a need for intimacy that is congenial to human nature, and common to many religious forms. We observe the presence of symbols, icons, and signs that come to us once again like the vowels of a remote pagan ritual. Something that emerges from the superficiality of the everyday like the sense of death, like the echo of deep fear, as the darkness of the night.

After all, it is one of the many episodes of oppression and extermination that mark the pages of the history manuals. An endless battle in the name of one creed or another. Yet, retracing the history of persecution in Russia helps us to understand how the existence or inexistence of God has assumed an ideological character in history, and consequently a strong connection with power. By way of example, we can briefly recall various persecutory campaigns that occurred during the twentieth century, the numerous massacres, the Great Purge, the Stalinist terror.

In more recent times we can see that the advance on a global scale of secularism as a form of emancipation from any form or religious bond actually responds to the monotheistic logic of the market that presses to replace the candles in the churches with the neon lights of the shopping centers, the sacred icons of the saints with the posters of the pop singers created in vitro, the words of the prayers with the pale refrains of advertisements. A question arises spontaneously in this irreverent scenario: who will be the next Old Believers? Probably all those who oppose the totalitarianism of the consumer civilization that has been the bearer of an absolute and fundamentalist truth. A new flag that waves colorless on the peaks of the skyscrapers of imperialist and usurer finance.

© Fyodor Telkov from the series 'Right to Believe'

© Fyodor Telkov from the series 'Right to Believe'

© Fyodor Telkov from the series ''Right to Believe'

© Fyodor Telkov from the series 'Right to Believe'

© Fyodor Telkov from the series 'Right to Believe'

© Fyodor Telkov from the series 'Right to Believe'

Precisely for this reason Jesus is furious with the merchants and hunts them from the temple. A scene well represented in the history of art and forgotten by the more glamour and contemporary scene. The clash, therefore, that is being announced will be fulfilled and unraveled between those who support the primacy of the sacred over the market (the new popular deity) and those who intend to privatize the territory of the soul. Perhaps God is not dead, according to Nietzsche's writings, because he was hired as a testimonial by the capitalist elite. The latter, not surprisingly, also known as the "High Society", has overthrown every form of divinity from the celestial throne, and ensured the fidelity of the New Believers, with the slavery of monetary debt and, therefore, moral. 

Thus, paraphrasing the title of this series by Fyodor Telkov, 'Right to believe', today the need to defend the borders of sacredness arises with decisive urgency. These images, the signs, gestures, the sounds, and silences evoked, and the places, not only document the value of a secular resistance, they project into the future the shadow of a tree not yet completely uprooted. 

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LINKS
Fyodor Telkov
Urbanautica Russia