Nuanced critique of nihilist Russia

Books , Criticism , Russia Dec 12, 2012 No Comments

In the lead-up to the March 4 Russian presidential election, which Vladimir Putin won in a landslide amid allegations of fraud, Foreign Policy magazine published an article by Thomas de Waal titled ‘How Gogol Explains the Post-Soviet World’. “How about skipping the political science textbooks when it comes to trying to understand the former Soviet Union and instead opening up the pages of Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov and Fyodor Dostoyevsky?” de Waal wrote.

“These classics, each more than a century old, provide … the specific detail and the grand panorama that are lacking in a shelf full of overmodelled political analysis.”
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The problem with de Waal’s thought experiment, which did the rounds among Russia watchers, was not that the Russian classics don’t help to explain the post-Soviet world. It was that contemporary Russian fiction helps to explain it even better.

Read the full review in The Weekend Australian.

Matthew Clayfield

Matthew Clayfield is a journalist, critic and screenwriter.

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