Krylov's THE ORACLE*
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Caption: Krylov statue, Summer Garden, St. Petersburg.
IN a certain temple there was a wooden idol which began to utter prophetic answers, and to give wise counsels.
Accordingly, it rejoiced in a very rich attire, being covered from top to toe with gold and silver; and was gorged with sacrifices, deafened by prayers, and choked with incense.
Every one believed blindly in the Oracle.
All of a sudden?wonderful to relate!?the Oracle began to talk nonsense?took to answering incoherently and absurdly, so that, if any one consulted it about anything, whatever our Oracle said was a lie; so that every one wondered what had become of its prophetic faculty.
The fact was, that the idol was hollow, and the priests used to sit in it in order to reply to the laity; and so, as long as the priest was discreet, the idol did not talk nonsense; but when a fool took to sitting in it, the idol became a mere dummy.
I have heard?can it be true??that in days gone by there used to be judges who were renowned for ability?so long as they kept an able secretary.
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Drollery is what Krylov practiced during his time (1789-1844) in Czarist Russia. Somehow, he was able to elude punishment for his gentle, tongue-in-cheek criticism of the royals and their corrupt bureaucracies. I doubt he would have been tolerated by Stalin or Putin.
This year, I had a momentary hope of visiting in person via a Helsinki ferry the above statue. Doing so, I realized, would be supremely stupid - a dual citizen of Latvia and the USA - to put a foot across the Russian border while Russia wages war in Ukraine and is ever on the lookout for hostages.
*Source: Krilof and his fables, by Krylov, Ivan Andreevich, 1768-1844; Ralston, William Ralston Shedden, 1828-1889. Tr. London, 1869
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ONLY a click away, my oracular fables for the workplace:
And, my book on democratic workplaces includes wise and not so wise counsel: Leading from the Middle, is available at Amazon.
Copyright text by John Lubans 2023
John Lubans - portrait by WSJ