Three Dirty Words

“You cannot imagine what sorrow and anger seize one’s whole soul when a great idea, which one has long and piously revered, is picked up by some bunglers and dragged into the street, to more fools like themselves, and one suddenly meets it in the flea market, unrecognizable, dirty, askew, absurdly presented, without proportion, without harmony, a toy for stupid children.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons*

In Russia, liberty, democracy and capitalism have all gotten a bad reputation. This is largely thanks to the greedy, short-sighted actions of the first wave of Russia’s reformers. Under their stewardship of the Russian state, liberty became equated with license, democracy with anarchy and capitalism with monopoly.

Is it any wonder then, that Russians are increasingly nostalgic for the order and stability of pre-reform times, that anti-Americanism is on the rise (these three ideals having been most loudly trumpeted by consultants and emissaries from the US), and that there is an immovable cynicism about economic and political reform?

It is almost painful to watch the worst types of American consumerism infect Russian cities, to see Russian politicians embrace new conceptions of “the national interest,” defined more by what Russia is against than what it is for, or to hear “intellectuals” embrace the return of the Soviet national anthem while dismissing the significance of its Stalinist provenance.

They just don’t get it.

Meanwhile, on our side of the pond, we continue to see comic book caricatures of Russian reality in the media. Politicians proudly display their “foreign policy expertise” by dismissing Russia as a third world country and an “irrelevant” former superpower. Never mind that this is the largest country on earth, that it is one of the best educated, that it pumps more oil than the Middle East and has most of the world’s important strategic resources underneath it.

They just don’t get it.

Thankfully, there are people that do “get it.” They ignore political correctness and take the long view, they strive for excellence in what they do, they relentlessly pursue an idea or an enterprise that they know in their gut is worth doing, despite what conventional wisdom has to say about it. And, little by little, they change our world. Our year-long series (beginning on page 19 in this issue) on 100 Young Russians To Watch in the 21^st Century is all about these sorts of people. They are remaking and reshaping Russia in ways we will only be able to judge decades hence. We hope you find them as interesting to read about as they were for us to write about.

As this series begins, so ends our previous year-long series “East Across Siberia.” William Brumfield has guided us along the historical path of Russia’s eastward migration from Perm, through Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Tobolsk, Omsk and Tomsk. His final installment (page 35) takes us to Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk and to the shores of Baikal.

Also in this issue (page 48) is a story about a very unconventional Russian, Nikolai Roerich. John McCannon has given us an objective, enlightening biography of this controversial artist and philosopher, whose 125th “birthday” was celebrated last fall. Our only regret is that we did not have space to show more of his startlingly beautiful paintings. But check our website; we’ll post links to some online archives of his works.

Finally, without sounding too self-congratulatory, we should note that this is the 50th issue of Russian Life since we took over the magazine in July 1995. We enter the new year and the new century with optimism and hope, and we want to thank you, our readers, for the support you have given, which has allowed us to bring Russian Life this far. We will be working this year to dramatically increase circulation and readership of the magazine. And you can help! Tell a friend or two about Russian Life or call up your local bookstore and pester them to carry it on their newsstand.

Just tell them they really need to “get it.” Russian Life, that is.

Happy New Year and enjoy the issue.