All Good Things

“Could anything be more ordinary than the Moscow Kremlin?“

So began Tamara Eidelman’s first contribution to Russian Life, in May 2004, seemingly a lifetime ago.

Vladimir Putin had just been re-elected for the first time (he is now on his fourth term), and it was five months before the horrific Beslan hostage crisis and massacre.

The following January, in 2005, Tamara became our History Editor and began penning thought-provoking stories for our history (now Chronicle) section. To date she has written 329 pieces for Russian Life, more than any other contributor.

But it turns out that the YouTube channel of history lectures Tamara launched has taken off like a rocket ship, leaving her no time for Russian Life. She will be missed, but we will surely invite her back for feature contributions in future.

Tamara has played an important role in this magazine because history often takes center stage here. This issue is no different., since it is the 200th anniversary of Dostoyevsky’s birth, and the 225th anniversary of Catherine the Great’s death. But we, of course, could not take on either of these anniversaries in a conventional way. We had to do them in The Russian Life Way. We hope you like the result.

Speaking of history, exactly a century ago Russia was in the final throes of its agonizing Civil War, and a horrendous famine. It was the era of War Communism – a first nasty taste of the seventy years of ruthless authoritarianism that would follow.

Today we find ourselves mired in a relentless epidemic, one that has stolen from our world two years, trillions of dollars, and millions of lives, largely as a result of incompetent leadership, poor public health messaging, and politically motivated lies.

I wonder how the world will look back on us 100 years from now? Will they think us as misguided as we now see those who led Russia into the abyss in 1921? What opportunities lost will they cite? What will they see our difficult Covid era as having been a preface to?

That is something only our grandchildren-historians can answer. For my part, the best way I can think of to back out of this depressing editorial cul-de-sac I have penned myself into is to quote the recently deceased Sergei Kovalev, who wrote, in a long obituary to Andrei Sakharov, “Our tragic century (like the one before it) was beset by the demons of anti-intellectualism and irrationalism. And to be sober and remain sober in a world of drunks, to be awake in a world of sleepers is unusually hard.”

Enjoy the issue. See you in the New Year. (And don’t forget to pick up one of our wall calendars; they are especially beautiful this year.)