July 13, 2009

From Mikhail to Michael


Four years ago, in August 2005, then Senator Barack Obama was detained for three hours at a Siberian airport. Obama, with Senator Dick Lugar, was on a US delegation touring nuclear warhead storage and disposal sites. Russian border guards insisted on searching the delegation's plane. The senators refused. The diplomatic standoff lasted three hours before the plane was allowed to leave Russia.

Had Russian authorities known then that the junior senator from Illinois would become the next US President, things might have gone differently. But then that's the thing about the future. You never know what it's going to bring. Take Rejkyavik, for example.

On a cold and dreary October morning in 1986, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev parted bitterly from their summit at Rejkyavik, Iceland. The world had held its breath as the two came within a handshake of slashing their countriesâ?? massive nuclear arsenals in half. But talks broke down over Reagan's unwillingness to give up on research into missile defense, then known as SDI or, more popularly, Star Wars.

And yet, despite this "failure," within a year, Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. It eliminated all intermediate range nuclear missiles in a span of just four years.

Over the next two decades, strategic arms reductions talks and treaties led to more cuts in warheads, missiles and bombers. As a result, the number of nuclear weapons deployed by the two superpowers dropped from 25,000 in 1986 to about 8,000 today - far below Gorbachev and Reagan's "pie in the sky" goal of 50%.

Last week, President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to still further reductions. If those cuts are made, the number of warheads could drop to around 10% of what they were 30 years ago.

Even remembering that thousands of nuclear warheads are stockpiled but not deployed, this is a remarkable achievement. And it has been little noticed amid the hoopla of summits, where more attention is given to leaders' personal chemistry than to how those heads of state are actually affecting the trajectory of history.

Still, it is hopeful to realize that the idealistic dreams of a failed summit did become a reality - even though it took 20 years. Or that a junior US senator, once a pawn in a diplomatic squabble, could - just four years later - unlock a stalemate, and sign a historic arms control agreement with our nuclear rival.

And yet, Obama's trip - only the sixth visit to the USSR or Russia by a sitting US President since World War II - was last week unexpectedly overshadowed by the memorial for Michael Jackson.

But this is a good thing. The seeds planted at Rejkyavik have borne fruit: inching away from nuclear confrontation has become ordinary and expected.

Which means it's now time to sow some different, Rejkyavik-sized seeds for our children, and our children's children - for instance on climate change - because, after all, you never know what the future might bring.

[This Commentary was broadcast on Vermont Public Radio, 7/14/09]

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

The Little Golden Calf

The Little Golden Calf

Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
At the Circus (bilingual)

At the Circus (bilingual)

This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
A Taste of Chekhov

A Taste of Chekhov

This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.
Murder at the Dacha

Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
Fearful Majesty

Fearful Majesty

This acclaimed biography of one of Russia’s most important and tyrannical rulers is not only a rich, readable biography, it is also surprisingly timely, revealing how many of the issues Russia faces today have their roots in Ivan’s reign.
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955