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Leonid Borodin (1938 - ) Story of a strange time (fragment) ... It was a very strange epoch. People knew and didn´t know, they guessed and did not guess, they believed and did not believe. One can only say that their belief was incommesurably bigger than the doubt that they allowed themselves. The object of their faith was so immense and grand and was so all-powerful in the context of human interactions that all individual feeling, and all personal definitions were almost completely replaced. It defined everything, even insignificant elements of morality. Some surprising social phenomenon was being worked out, embodying in itself at the same time present and future, aim and means, belief and knowledge. One day they will call this grand and monstruous idol a social Narcissus, and they will be right because it really was so: the idol not only lived and acted for itself and in its own name, but in addition it was pathologically in love with itself and there was no sacrifice in existence which it would not carry out in order to preserve its image. The idol was fantastic. Fantasy has limits, beyond which it´s impossible to derive a symbolic meaning. And then there is a shift in the human psyche. Their fantasy is seen as possible or even real. The fantasy of the idol was such. Reasonable and factual arguments were powerless before it. In human nature there is a susceptibility and thirst for miracles, and this is as it should be. There was a miracle. But in the vanity of life, people forgot about it, although the need remained. Then they themselves started to create it according to their ability and needs - and they are still creating. And they have already created many... 1969 Vladimir Prison
(From "Written in prison. XXth century. Russia") Bilingual edition - Russian/English.
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