The subtitle of this book, “How Russia fell in and out of love with Vladimir Putin” is an apt summary. Judah chronicles the rise of Putin from virtual nobody (1991), to lionized tsar (2008), to a putative Tsar Nicholas II or Boris Gudonov (2012). It is a compelling account, based on thousands of interviews with ordinary Russians, and dozens with “influentials” past and present.
Judah shows Putin to be a man who has assumed the guise demanded of him by events and history: a Chekist in the last days of the USSR, a democrat under Sobchak, a loyal servant under Yeltsin, a militant war president riding a popular tide that wanted security and stability above freedom. But, in the process of that last bit, Judah argues, Putin and his coterie built centralizing institutions that eviscerated civil society and the democratic accomplishments of the Yeltsin era. The manipulative interim presidency of Medvedev, followed by the re-re-election of Putin showed that the Vertical of Power had no clothes, that “managed democracy” had only “the formal institutions of democracy... gutted of meaning,” that the Party of Power was in fact the “party of crooks and thieves.”
The vertical of power turned into a vertical of corruption, United Russia turned into a patronage network not a party, and the ‘dictatorship of law’ turned out to be a dictatorship of predatory officials. They left Russia a fragmented and feudalized country in which all corrupt policeman, inspectors and governors had been signed up into Putin’s party.
The mass demonstrations of 2011-12, Judah says, were signs of a discontent that he says is far from limited to the capital. The discontent “is vast,” he says, “but resistance is tiny.” For now, the regime has bought off its natural critics, but a civil society is creating itself online, away from the corrupt and powerless vessels of “managed democracy.” How it will develop is as yet uncertain.
This book is a sobering portrait. It is strongest in describing the type of state Russia has become, how it has come to be driven by the personality and desires of one man. Many, however, may find the prognosis to be overly dismal. In any event, if you are interested in understanding where Russia is and how it got there, this is an exceptional place to start.
Victor Martinovich is a funny writer. Funny not in a Douglas Adams sort of way. More like George Orwell or Aldous Huxley. Not “ha ha,” more like “hm.”
This novel is a love tragedy. But, since it takes place in totalitarian Belarus (Martinovich’s home is not mentioned, but that’s where we are), it’s really a bizarre love triangle, between the protagonist Anatoly, a writer, Elisaveta, a woman whom Anatoly meets in a café, and the State, which, given its jealous totalitarian-ness, must monitor even the most mundane and intimate moments of the couple’s lives.
The story’s narrative alternates with intelligence reports or transcripts that are pitch perfect in their dry reportage, and on the whole the novel is as hilarious a send up of modern Belorussian tyranny as one can expect. Why is probably why the book was banned upon its release and Martinovich is now living in exile.
At first one is a bit amazed that “every Russian” knows so little. At 114 pages, this is a slim volume indeed for a book that seeks to impart the fullness of Russian cultural awareness.
But of course Fedina is not that ambitious, and, actually, she is rather gifted at stuffing a great amount of information into a very small space. Thus, an essay on Emelya the Simpleton touches on everything from toasty cabbage pies to Alexei Navalny to the Russian stove to fatalism and Dostoyevsky.
There are 12 short essays in this worthy book, exploring important films, comics, fairy tales and fiction. They convey far from everything an educated Russian would know, but certainly a goodly amount of what an educated westerner might want to know before spending any amount of time in Russia or with Russians.
An added plus is that each chapter has a list of useful Russian phrases, jokes or idioms related to the theme.
Nasan, a young Tatar princess, is used as diplomatic fodder, to patch up a feud between two families – her own and that of a powerful Moscow boyar. But the arranged marriage (to a cousin of her brother’s cold-blooded murderer, actually) not surprisingly turns out to be loveless. The spirited Nasan takes to slipping out at night, roaming the streets of Moscow to do good deeds dressed as a young boy in order to assuage her guilt over her brother’s death. In the process, she creates the heroic persona of the Golden Lynx.
Soon, however, Nasan is swept up in treacherous events. She alone stands able to stop a treasonous plot and save the young Tsar Ivan (who of course she cannot know will grow up to be Ivan the Terrible).
Swiftly paced, with compelling characters and vivid scenes evoking distant Muscovy, The Golden Lynx is a find for lovers of historical fiction, particularly one set in Russia. It is also unique in exploring the contrasts and tensions between sixteenth century Tatar and Russian cultures.
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