From president to protector? Putin takes himself to new heights with divine rebranding
Until recently, Vladimir Putin insisted (at least publicly) that he did not want a personality cult surrounding him. no longer. He embraced the war in Ukraine during its final three years.
At his annual news conference last month, Putin nodded solemnly and boasted about his improved skills – talking about himself more than ever. With his lips pursed in a bitter expression, he described himself this way: “I joke less now, I hardly laugh anymore.”
The no-nonsense Putin even spoke of the war on Orthodox Christmas Day in January at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the country’s main church. The Kremlin informed Russians that Putin had asked the country’s top priest to “engrave his initials on the chain of the cross worn by soldiers.”
Putin attended the Christmas service at St. George’s Church in Moscow. /Getty Images
Patriarch Kirill was photographed with Putin: “Here are crosses, as well as other busts with the image of the holy, co-apostle Grand Prince Vladimir, the founder of our Rus, our country, the A protector of the country, but besides that, he is also your patron saint in heaven,” the priest told Putin. “So, I think it will be doubly understanding and enjoyable for all soldiers who receive these images,” Kirill continued before consecrating the necklace.
Russia’s Kremlin experts are shocked. The president’s initials on the soldier’s cross were definitely a sign of a new development. “We couldn’t even imagine that something like this could have happened before,” Abbas Galiamov, Putin’s former speechwriter, told The Daily Beast in an interview on Saturday. “Putin used to be much more level-headed and he didn’t pretend to have a divine status.” Galyamov worked in the Kremlin government and the Russian government from 2008 to 2020.
Russian nationalists and ideologues have been promoting and calling for a personality cult around Putin for years. Kremlin Chief Vyacheslav Volodin announced state policy along this basic line in October 2014: “With Putin, there is Russia; There is Russia. Without Putin, there would be no Russia today.
Putin asked the country’s top priest to have his initials engraved on the chain of crosses worn by soldiers. /Getty Images
The Russian Orthodox Cossack Union built a monument to “Russian Tsar” Putin in St. Petersburg shortly after the annexation of Crimea. The bronze Putin resembles a Roman emperor, naked from the waist up, with a robe draped over his shoulders. Putin appears modest and dismisses all Russian efforts to declare him the new czar. “It’s not true, other people can be called tsars. “I work every day, I don’t rule,” Putin said in 2020. But that same year, the Russian Orthodox Church officially allowed construction of the new Armed Forces Cathedral. A portrait of Putin is placed on the wall. Russian propaganda analyst Ilya Shepelin told The Daily Beast: “The more propaganda and the church promoted his divine qualities, the more he believed he possessed them, so he must have told himself: Even Jesus Christ didn’t leave a signature either, but I will. “We pay close attention to how the presidential administration organizes and arranges Putin’s visits to these areas, and his fans tell him that everyone loves him. He doesn’t see anything else.
The Russian regime is changing to accept a larger and more critical role for Orthodoxy. Priests and bureaucrats came up with new initiatives. Orthodox priests were assigned to work in schools and universities. Earlier this week, Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Yevgeny suggested assigning priests to work with journalists from all media outlets in the Ural Mountains region. “Why not appoint a funny, smart, deep, kind pastor who will help build that bridge between the life of the church and the lives of people who consider themselves Russian Orthodox and some kind of media children.”
Olga Bychkova, a long-time Kremlin observer, said Putin’s new shift in allusions to divine qualities was due to his desire to remain popular. “He needs to find new points of support to support himself, not only to make more new promises to the country, but also to convince himself,” Bychkova told The Daily Beast in an interview on Saturday. “Putin and Trump are very similar. They turn obscure ideas into popular opinions. But more and more people will find Putin’s efforts laughable. It’s clear that this is just the stupid behavior of an old man.
