Dmitry Ivanov: “Freedom Is the Freedom to Say That Two Plus Two Makes Four”
Dmitry Ivanov’s closing statement at his trial
OIga Nazarenko: real-life grassroots anti-war heroine
OIga Nazarenko, a lecturer at a medical university in Ivanovo, is a real-life grassroots anti-war heroine. Radio Svoboda interviewed her recently.
The Distance Between Cape Cod and Mariupol
What strikes me as particularly undeniable is that the absence of the feeling of belonging to a class is characteristic of children of the bourgeoisie. People in a dominant class position do not notice that they are positioned, situated, within a specific world (just as someone who is white isn’t necessarily aware of being so, or someone heterosexual). Read in this light, Aron’s remark can be seen for what it is, the naive confession offered by a person of privilege who imagines he is writing sociology when all he is doing is describing his own social status. I only met him once in my life, and immediately felt a strong aversion towards him. The very moment I set eyes on him, I loathed his ingratiating smile, his soothing voice, his way...
Payback
The Dialogue of Civilizations (DOC) Research Institute, a front used by the Putin regime to co-opt the oddly named international community’s brahmins and bigwigs, is a twenty-minute walk from the Bundestag, and it is surrounded by German ministry buildings. What better way for the German government to express its distress with the Russian government’s poisoning of Alexei Navalny than by shutting the DOC down?
Swine
Andrei “Swine” Panov, the now deceased founder of the first Soviet punk rock group, Automatic Satisfiers (AS), would have celebrated his 60th birthday this past spring. In an interview, his widow, Olga Korol-Borodyuk, spoke to Sergei Vilkov about how Soviet youth of the late 1970s managed to move in sync with the second wave of British punk; what ideology Swine and his crowd professed; what he thought of the political events of the Yeltsin era; Panov’s image in the movie Leto; how the current troubled times differ from the troubled times back then, and much more. https://therussianreader.com/2020/09/02/andrei-swine-panov/
Alexei "Socrates" Sutuga, 1986-2020
Alexei Sutuga, a former political prisoner and one of the most distinguished activists of the antifa movement, better known in Moscow by the pseudonym Socrates, died on the morning of September 1, 2020, at the Sklifosovsky Institute of Emergency Medicine in Moscow. https://therussianreader.com/2020/09/01/alexei-socrates-sutuga-1986-2020/
Putin's Last Autumn?
Artemy Troitsky argues that Belarusian-style political unrest and large-scale nationwide popular protests are unlikely to kick off in Russia this autumn. He hopes that he's wrong, but I think he's right, although I too hope that he's wrong. In any case, you can't go wrong by reading Troitsky's cynical but plausible reflections: they were inspired by a song by his friend the late great Mike Naumenko, which you can listen to in this latest episode of The Russian Reader, the last one for the Russian summer, which ends today. https://therussianreader.com/2020/08/31/artemy-troitsky-putin-last-autumn/
Socrates Is in Trouble
Alexei Polikhovich: Socrates is in trouble Alexei “Socrates” Sutuga is in intensive care. He has suffered a severe brain contusion, fractures of the parietal and temporal bones, and a cerebral edema, and the right half of the body is paralyzed. Alexei was operated on and his skull was trepanned. He’s in a coma now. Alexei is an antifascist, civic activist, and former political prisoner who has been involved in campaigns supporting other political prisoners. We met at Butyrka prison. I always tell everyone this story and laugh, since I hinted to him about his nickname in the presence of the cops: “Ancient Greek philosopher, fifth century BC?” Afterwards, we corresponded, exchanged books, and discussed politics. After we got out, we were...