Employees of the Moscow police department “Khamovniki” drew up a protocol under the article on discrediting the armed forces against the participant of the anti-war demonstration A.N. Nikitin. The reason for this was a quote from Leo Tolstoy, according to OVD-Info.
“Patriotism is the renunciation of human dignity, reason, conscience and the slavish submission of oneself to those in power. Patriotism is slavery,” was written on Nikitin’s poster. The quote is taken from Tolstoy’s book Christianity and Patriotism, written in 1893-1894.
“It is a well-known fact that in Tolstoy’s works and journalistic articles the ruling regime was severely criticized, especially for justifying violence during a social explosion. Thus, the actions of citizen Nikitin should be interpreted as a call for the overthrow of the current government, as well as following the ideology of Tolstoy L.N. ” – noted in the protocol.
Earlier, the translator Lyubov Summ, the granddaughter of the poet Pavel Kogan, was detained for public reading of Nekrasov. “These are the tears of poor mothers! They will not forget their children, Who died in the bloody field, How not to raise the weeping willow Their drooping branches,” was written on the poster she held.
We add that it was in Khamovniki that the Moscow estate of Leo Tolstoy was located. Now it houses the State Museum of the Classics of Russian Literature.