“Warship, go fuck yourself.”—Ukrainian defenders of Snake Island to a Russian warship demanding that they surrender. The Ukrainians were annihilated. They will not be forgotten. [Breaking: The Ukrainian Navy now says the Snake Island sailors were captured alive. -ed.]
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On February 12, 2012, the Russian group Pussy Riot performed in Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. This wasn’t a gig that had been booked in the social hall of the Orthodox church. The members of the band were there to protest that the Russian Orthodox hierarchy support Vladimir Putin. Many of us who live in the United States have a general sense that mainstream religious organizations do have something of a separation as regards the First Amendment between Church and State. While that is generally true (although there many instances, from abortion law to book-banning, and this is in the mainstream category; there is a whole segment of MAGA-thumping religious groups that make one wonder whether those people have ever cracked open a copy of the Bible, as their idol seems to have a glancing familiarity with “I think it’s just incredible, the whole Bible is incredible.”), what the members of Pussy Riot were going up against is what is arguably a state religion.
It isn’t hard to imagine for Putin to be repeating to himself, over and over, Je suis l’état.
And members of the band were tried and convicted of “hooliganism” and sent to prison.
In the church (as well as another, the Epiphany Cathedral at Yelokhovo, which is where the chair of the Russian Orthodox Church is located—because in 1931 Stalin had the Christ the Saviour Cathedral destroyed; it was rebuilt in the 1990s, arguably in order to make Putin feel that he was leading the Mother Russia that existed in the time of Peter the Great, not because of some deep-seated feeling of religious passion), Pussy Riot performed “Punk Prayer: Mother of God Drive Putin Away.”
There are probably those in Kyiv right now who are saying that very prayer.
And some other more-pointed phrases.