This extraordinary biography of one of Soviet Russia’s most flamboyant and successful illegals, Dmitry Bystrolyotov (whose last name literally means “son of a fast flyer”), is gripping, entertaining and immensely informative.
Bystrolyotov contacted Draitser back in the 1970s, just before the author emigrated from the Soviet Union. Thirty years later, Draitser decided to follow up on the spy’s amazing story, and ended up being handed a cache of Bystrolyotov’s personal documents by a family relative. From these records and from extensive archival research, Draitser has reconstructed an era and a personality that is without equal.
From Bystrolyotov’s youthful adventures around the Black Sea coast, to his pre-WWII travels back and forth across Europe as a “night of cloak and dagger,” to his term in Norillag, one of the worst of Stalin’s slave labor camps, this is the sort of thoroughly engrossing espionage tale worthy of a Hollywood epic. The access to Bystrolyotov’s thinking and actions provided by his personal documents, and the care Draitser takes in reconstructing his astounding life (always having his B.S. meter close at hand), make this an invaluable memoir for understanding the workings of Soviet intelligence and Soviet foreign policy.
Early in her marvelous book, Susan Richards observes that, “When a society starts falling apart, the surface of things remains deceptively tranquil…” The rest of the book seems somehow designed to show that the opposite is also true.
It is difficult to know what to call this book: a travelogue, a social history, a study in microeconomics or sociology? A probing of mysticism and theology perhaps? At a loss, I’ll just call it a great read.
The work spans a decade and a half of the author’s travels about Russia, pursuing an optimistic bent that, despite the turmoil at the top, one could find tranquility and wisdom in Russia’s villages, an answer to what makes Russia tick.
Focusing on the town of Marx, near Saratov, Richards follows her interest and leads us on something of a cross-country vaudeville show, where we meet everything from Old Believers to successful entrepreneurs, religious fanatics to gangsters to followers of an obscure nineteenth century philosopher. But there are also loving, friendly, normal sorts who have been ground up by the changes roiling Russian society, people who take in a vagabond writer and share their lives.
Richards writes beautifully and delivers a colorful, complex tableau of Russia that will spark memories in those who have traveled there over the last two or three decades, and fill in the blank spots of history – meaning how the Collapse affected real people – for all the rest.
Recently, a general discussion I had with a Russian colleague about the history of the War of 1812 turned into a rather heated exchange on the relative roles of Generals Kutuzov and Barclay de Tolly. It reminded me that this war, even though 200 years removed in history, still sits just below the surface of Russian consciousness, a central pillar in the historical argument that Russia has repeatedly been besieged by hordes, imperialists and racists. And one challenges the Conventional Wisdom only at one’s peril.
What Lieven does in this monumental, two-pound tome, subtitled “The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace,” is take on much of Western Conventional Wisdom (as well, it might be said, as Tolstoyan and Soviet C.W.) about this war. What we know about Napoleon’s war against Russia, Lieven asserts, tends to be that written by British and French historians. To counter this, he dove into the Russian military archives and surfaced with a fulsome new account of the war as seen from the Russian perspective.
Most specifically, Lieven seems to want to counter the prevailing notion that somehow Napoleon lost the war, whether due to winter conditions, disease among his troops, and the whims of Fate. Instead, he argues, Russia won it. Not because of some Tolstoyan rising of the people, and not because of the monumental efforts of some singular hero like Kutuzov. Instead, it was because Russian leaders out-thought and out-spied their French counterparts, because Russia’s professional military was highly meritorious and better trained, and because Russia was far superior when it came to light cavalry. The horse was key.
Yet Lieven also wants in this history to focus attention away from just 1812, and onto 1813-1814, when Russia really finished off Napoleon, when it achieved the monumental task of securing supply lines all the way to Paris (something Napoleon failed at).
This is a superb history and not just for military historians who revel in battle details. On the contrary, Lieven focuses on the home front and on the wider context in a way that makes his history both readable and essential for understanding this complex and portentous conflict. Includes loads of excellent illustrations and nearly two dozen pages of helpful maps.
Somehow, you can almost see Lev Nikolayevich looking out over the pond at Yasnaya Polyana and spinning out this line:
“The young princess Kitty Shcherbatskaya was eighteen. It was the first winter that she had been out in the world, and shortly she would at last receive her very own beloved-companion robot.”
Almost.
In this aridly funny mashup of what many have called “the greatest novel ever written,” the timeless tale of infidelity and social mores has been infused (like a fine vodka, perhaps) with groznium – a miracle metal that has allowed Russia to create a Rube Goldbergian mechanized society on the backs of robot servants.
Tolstoy’s tale has been spiced up with loads of sub-plots, including renegade scientists and alien invaders, terrorists and the hellacious fury of a scorned cyborgian husband. And in what may be a tip of the hat to Phillip Pullman, the heroes’ personal robots take on the characteristics of their human masters, giving the twisting plot something of a double edged helix.
As if a send-up of this sacred text in the classic canon is not enough, there is the hilarious “Reader’s Discussion Guide,” which takes aim at the popularity of book clubs. Question 4:
“Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin’s ‘Face’ is a trusted technological device that slowly takes over his brain and makes him evil. Was Tolstoy merely creating an interestingly dichotomous villain, or anticipating people who check their messages too much? How often do you check your messages?”
Put this one in the guilty pleasure column and enjoy.
For those looking for yet more evidence that the security services are pulling the strings in modern Russia, look no further than this extraordinary new book from the fearless journalists at agentura.ru. Soldatov (who has written for Russian Life) and Borogan have compiled a history of FSB activities and operations over the past decade that paint a very vivid picture of a security service that has become Russia’s new ruling class.
Today’s FSB, the authors show, is careerist, clannish, suspicious and inward looking. Oh, and ruthless and absolutely unaccountable to any democratically governed body.
With amazing accounts of some of the most significant security crises and counter-terrorist activities of the past decade, Soldatov and Borogan offer insights into FSB operations that have not been offered anywhere to date, outside perhaps the FSB and the CIA. Certainly the Russian press has offered little in this realm since Putin, Edinaya Rossiya and the FSB stepped in to fill the power vacuum left behind when the Communist Party was sucked out into space. A must read.
American cellist Wendy Warner and Russian pianist Irina Nuzova, who have been performing together for a few years as the WarnerNuzova duo, present a warm, and satisfying recording in this collection of works by Miaskovsky, Prokofiev, Scriabin, Schnittke and Rachmaninov. Cedille specializes in recordings of music that is rarely performed in public, but should be, by artists that are not widely known, but should be. The sound quality on this disc is simply superb, and there is a line of grace and sweet melancholy running through every piece, as one would expect on a cello collection that explores the Russian soul.
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.
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