October 31, 2014

Idols and Anniversaries


Idols and Anniversaries

Twenty-five years ago, when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, it was a time of hope and relief. Since the 1940s we had held our breath, limping from crisis to crisis, hoping that Dr. Strangelove was not hiding in a dark corner, waiting to make his play.

In November 1989 we could breathe again. Eastern Europe was unshackled. One after another, communist icons and idols teetered and fell: one-party rule, the planned economy, forced labor camps. Suddenly there was freedom of travel, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of conscience.

The euphoria was heady. Yet the hangover soon followed. In August 1991, the forces of reaction made an attempt to regain power, promising stability, security, and a return to the coddled past. Thankfully, they were rebuffed, and crowds descended on Moscow’s Lubyanka Square. There, with the help of a crane, they toppled the massive statue of Iron Felix.

With this act, it seemed as if Russian society had crossed a Rubicon. By tearing down that fearsome sentinel before the KGB building, it was signaling a turn toward the Right, away from terror, sovietism and Big Brother. Within months, the republics of the Soviet Union, six or more decades after being press-ganged into the USSR, were loosed to create their own futures.

But seven decades of warped economic and political theories could not be remedied quickly or without significant pain and suffering.

A decade of economic crises, wars and social strife followed. Russians became disillusioned. Democracy and capitalism were promising aspirations, but you can’t eat free speech. The newly-enfranchised, disorganized masses were powerless to stop the machinations of elites bent on stealing the nation’s wealth. Yet somehow, the country endured and, by the early 2000s, even began to prosper, thanks to rising oil prices.

Yet one important thing has been missing. At no time during its 25 years of transformation has Russia seriously reckoned with its past. There was no Truth and Reconciliation process to grapple with the excesses of Soviet rule. Sure, there were occasional movies, documentaries, books and even monuments (including one to Gulag victims on Lubyanka Square). Yet thousands of statues to one of the twentieth century’s worst mass murderers, Vladimir Lenin, still stand at the heart of thousands of Russian cities and towns, and his mummified body continues to lie in Red Square. Stalin is still revered. Talk of Gulags, informants, the Ukrainian famine, or collaboration with Hitler are discomforting and thus considered inappropriate. And, as late as December of last year, according to a VTsIOM poll, 45 percent of Russians favored the restoration of Iron Felix to Lubyanka Square. Only 25 percent were firmly opposed.

Then, as this issue was going to press, we learned that the Russian Ministry of Justice was petitioning the Russian Supreme Court to “liquidate” the Memorial social organization on a legal technicality. Amongst hundreds of very disturbing neo-Soviet moves we have seen by the Powers That Be in Moscow since 2012, this ranks very near the top. For Memorial is the singular organization in Russia making a concerted effort to remember and memorialize the victims and horrors of the Soviet past. And, as we know from hard-won experience, if a society cannot come to terms with its past, it endangers its future.


This editorial appeared in the Nov/Dec 2014 issue of Russian Life.

You Might Also Like

The Walls Came Tumbling Down!
  • December 18, 1999

The Walls Came Tumbling Down!

Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the beginning of Russia's transformation to democracy.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

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.
Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
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.
The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.
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.
Moscow and Muscovites

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 
The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
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.
Woe From Wit (bilingual)

Woe From Wit (bilingual)

One of the most famous works of Russian literature, the four-act comedy in verse Woe from Wit skewers staid, nineteenth century Russian society, and it positively teems with “winged phrases” that are essential colloquialisms for students of Russian and Russian culture.

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