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The Georgian Orthodox Church has asked that a sacred icon displayed in the cathedral of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, which represents Josip Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953, be modified. In the icon Stalin is blessed by Saint Matrona of Mosca, a Russian mystic and healer who lived in the twentieth century: according to the Orthodox Church, there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate a meeting between the two, and therefore the image should be changed to better represent historical reality.
Stalin’s political and historical legacy is much discussed in Georgia, the country where the dictator was born, and in the rest of the territories of the former Soviet Union, of which Georgia was part from 1921 to 1991. While in the West Stalin is remembered almost only as a brutal dictator, responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of people and the persecution of his political opponents, in the former Soviet Union he is sometimes remembered as the architect of the great power achieved by the country in the twentieth century and a supporter of the progress that transformed for a period the Soviet Union from a backward state to the second world economy.
The icon was donated a few months ago to the Tbilisi cathedral by a pro-Russian political party, the Alliance of Patriots of Georgia, and Stalin appears in a side panel, along with other stories regarding the life of Saint Matrona. Its presence had been mostly ignored until last week, when opposition politician Giorgi Kandelaki drew attention to it, criticizing it as an attempt to paint “one of the largest mass murders in history” in a positive”. According to Kandelaki, the revaluation of the figure of Stalin would be a weapon used by the Russian government to further its interests with an “information war”.
An icon to none other but Joseph Stalin in the of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi. Russia is scoring solid success as both EU and US fail to recognize the central role of weaponization of memory in Russia’s information warfare agenda and that of Stalin in particular pic.twitter.com/ejYE5CFngQ
— Giorgi Kandelaki (@kandelakigiorgi) January 6, 2024
On January 9, a Georgian activist, Nata Peradze, vandalized the icon, throwing blue paint at it, publishing the video on his Facebook profile (the icon appears to be protected by a transparent sheet, and has since been cleaned). Peradze said Stalin killed his entire family, ruling by terror. After the video was published, a crowd of far-right protesters surrounded the activist’s home, threatening her and repeatedly trying to enter the building.
Georgian police said they had opened an investigation into minor acts of vandalism after Peradze’s gesture. In Georgia, the paint throwing was seen by many as an act against the Church and against Christianity, rather than against Russia: members of the ruling party, Georgian Dream (centrist and pro-European), defined the gesture as «anti-Christian and anticlerical », and said they wanted to approve more severe penalties for offensive acts towards religious buildings and objects.
The Georgian Orthodox Church (followed by around 80 percent of the 3.7 million inhabitants) said that it is common for icons to also represent negative figures, such as heretics and persecutors of Christians, but that in these cases they should not be glorified . The Church said that the icon in question was not “of Stalin”, but “with Stalin”. Although he criticized Peradze’s gesture, considering it an attack on the Church in general, he still asked the donors to modify the icon, adding that if they had not done so, the Church itself would have taken care of it.
In the Orthodox religion, icons are much more relevant than similar images present in Catholic churches, and are indeed among the most significant and characteristic elements. They represent saints, angels and biblical stories according to precise and recurring canons with profound symbolic meanings, and are an instrument of prayer and devotion. Typically in Orthodox churches, the part where the faithful are and the part where the priests are is separated by a wall covered with icons, called an iconostasis.
The icon in question represents Saint Matrona of Moscow, also known as Matrona the Blind, a mystic and seer who lived between 1885 and 1952 and was recognized as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1999. According to a popular legend not confirmed by historical sources nor accepted officially from the Church the mystic received a visit from Stalin during the Nazi invasion of Russia in 1941. The dictator obtained the saint’s blessing and the reassurance that the Soviet army would be able to repel the invasion.
It’s not the first time an icon representing Stalin together with the saint it causes discussions. In 2008 in St. Petersburg a similar story led to the dismissal of the priest who had placed the icon in the church, after protests from parishioners.
Although the Soviet regime was officially atheist and repressed religious freedoms, Stalin is sometimes seen as a religious person. During the difficult moments of the Nazi invasion he also appealed to religious themes to mobilize the people to fight and resist. Furthermore, in the 1940s, religious organizations were partially legalized in the Soviet Union, after the violent repression of the 1920s and 1930s.
Stalin was born in 1876 in Gori, Georgia, into a family of humble origins. His real name was Josip Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Stalin was a nickname: in Russian it means “man of steel”). He was one of the most famous leaders of the twentieth century, but also one of the most criticized, due to the very violent repression of dissent that occurred during the 29 years of his government. According to a survey conducted in Georgia in 2021, 66 percent of people interviewed were convinced that “a patriotic Georgian should be proud of the fact that Stalin was Georgian.” About half believed that “Stalin was a tyrant responsible for millions of deaths,” but 66 percent also believed that “Stalin was a wise leader who led the Soviet Union to power and prosperity.” Since 2012, 12 new statues dedicated to him have been erected in Georgia.
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