Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
Solzhenitsyn is a nationalist in that he centers his analysis of Eurasian politics around what he sees as the interests of the Russian people — or, if we translate Rus’ as Ruthenia, of the Ruthenians. In Rebuilding Russia (Kak nam…
… on Dec. 11. There wasn’t much response in the Russian press, even less in the Western media. Putin, of course, sent Solzh a congratulatory letter (so tragicomical, so Russian). My feeling is that most Russian public intellectuals don’t want…
Gabriel Syme writes in Poor man’s Stalin: Saddam Hussain is of the same breed as the monstrous Josef Dzhugashvili – a powerful, resilient, personally courageous, charismatic, megalomaniac and psychopathic dictator. While comparing Bush to Hitler is plain stupid, comparing Hussein…
Robert Lane Greene of the Economist reminds that transition from totalitarianism to modern democracy can take a long, long time, depending on the initial and current conditions. It’s good to read an article so full of common sense, but why…
A police subdepartment responsible for neutralizing anti-government activities in pre-1917 Russia was called, in colloquial speech, okhranka (from okhrannoye otdelenie, “protection unit”), NOT *okhrana. The -k- suffix conveys familiarity and/or disparagement, and is common in colloquial Russian abridgements (sluzhebka from…
Before rock ‘n’ roll, there was jazz. Back in the 1950s and the early 1960s, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were on the lips and in the ears of many young men and women in the thawing Soviet Union. But…
Rock ‘n’ Roll by Diana West has a quote from the ambassador of Hungary to the US: When we were listening to the radio, we were part of the Free World, if only for a few moments, whether the system…
They are reviewing book reviews, among them Stefan Wagstyl’s of Anne Applebaum’s Gulag. Just read this: Many well-known gulag writers survived by working as “prison trusties”; others as informants. Solzhenitsyn did both. The last gulag closed in February 1992. “Solzhenitsyn…
This time, the Washington Post puts it well: Billionaire’s Arrest Delineates The Battle for Russia’s Future, with a subtitle: “Reformers Despair; KGB Veterans Seen Triumphant”. I do not hold all KGB veterans in contempt; the KGB consisted of more than…
Stalin was a train and bank robber – for the sake of Revolution, of course; he was arrested and exiled a few times, but it didn’t help. Lenin languished for twenty years in Europe, returning only briefly during the 1905—1907…
…from The Preserve (Zapovednik) by Sergei Dovlatov. The scene is set in the Pskov oblast’ in the 1970s. They did not like Stalin in the village. I had long noticed that. They must have well remembered collectivization and other Stalin…
Former Russian PM Chernomyrdin, now ambassador to Ukraine, is said to use profane words so intensely in private conversation that, when he must omit them in a public forum, there are not many left at all. Despite that – and,…