August coup

August 21st, 2011

20 years ago this week, the failed August Coup took place in Moscow, when Soviet hardliners attempted to oust Mikhail Gorbachev, and were themselves overcome by Boris Yeltsin, setting the stage for the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union. The events remain controversial, and within Russia the anniversary went by largely unnoticed and unmarked — an indication of the ambivalence with which the Putin/Medvedev government views those events. Below, some of the best links.

Russia and the USSR: a fructohistorical overview

August 18th, 2011

FruitMany things in life are both idle and curious. Trivial observations may neither enrich nor fortify, yet it is perhaps worthwhile to record them should their utility ever become manifest. With this in mind, here are a few words on various public figures who have adorned Russian and Soviet national life in the 20th century and beyond. They are united merely by the frivolous notion that their names in some way refer to fruit, however obliquely.

Let us first take Genrikh Yagoda. This ruthless third director of the NKVD was born Enokh Gershevich Ieguda (or possibly Heinrich Yehuda) in Rybinsk, to a Jewish family. Various far-right websites claim that his surname is the Russian word for ‘Jewish’, ignoring the fact that ‘Evreiskiy’ already accounts for this term, and thus adding to their already copious stock of errors. ‘Yagoda’ is actually the Russian for ‘strawberry’ — it was not uncommon in earlier times for Ashkenazim to name themselves after fruit and trees, amongst other things.

Yagoda and Yezhov

Yagoda’s gloomy and callous career came to an eventual end at the hands of his successor, the Russian Nikolai Yezhov. The diminutive Yezhov managed to exceed even his predecessor’s grotesqueness, and under his brief yet sordid stewardship, the NKVD descended into the very darkest period of the Purges. This prodigiously sadistic Narkom for Internal Affairs was known by the nicknames ‘Iron Hedgehog’ and ‘Blackberry’ (‘Yezhovka’), a play on his surname. Yezhov’s mercifully brief career was terminated by his deputy, Lavrentiy Beria, and although his name sounds conspicuously like ‘berry’ to the English-speaking ear, it is in fact derived from his Mingrelian-Georgian ethnicity, rendering any further fructopraetorian frolics futile at this point. It might be mentioned, however, that Beria’s close ally (and, briefly, Stalin’s successor as Chairman of the Council of Ministers) was Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov, whose surname bears a resemblance to ‘malina’ which is, of course, the Russian word for ‘raspberry’.

Just as all this is beginning to become rather tenuous, along comes the luckless Vladimir Vinogradov — or Vladimir Grape — personal physician to Josef Stalin himself. Vinogradov, along with others of the Kremlin’s medical retinue, ran afoul of the final paranoiac paroxysms of Stalin’s last days. The Doctor’s Plot, as it became known, was another of Stalin’s wild concoctions, aimed this time at what he perceived as Jewish bourgeois nationalism. A previous anti-Semitic campaign had been pursued under the guise of stamping out ‘rootless cosmopolitanism‘, which itself followed on from the persecution of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) in the late 1940s.

Mikhail SuslovOne of the early critics of the JAC was the future éminence grise, and Leonid Brezhnev’s ideological chief, Mikhail Suslov, whose name, of all things, means ‘pulp’ (‘suslo’). The festive Russian spirit knows its new wine as ‘vinogradnoye suslo’, and ‘pulped grapes’ is its literal and uncomfortably apposite translation. Although, given Suslov’s future role in Nikita Khrushchev’s ouster, this was more a case of pouring old wine into old bottles.

Our field becomes fallow for what seems like a dry eternity until the anointing of the bovine Konstantin Chernenko, by which time almost the entire power structure of the USSR had become fossilized to the point of gerontocracy. Chernenko can merely offer us the similarity that his name bears to ‘chernika’, or blueberries.

Chernenko and Gorbachev

This tremulous potentate whom history failed to notice remains obscure today, but his more illustrious successor in all probability derives his name from a corruption of ‘gorbaty’, meaning ‘hunch-backed’. However, it may be tempting to delude oneself that it etymologises from ‘gorbushka’ or ‘end-crust’, for such was the state that Gorbachev inherited from his blueberried predecessor. Gorbachev himself almost lost out on the promotion to Viktor Grishin, or Viktor Pear, a hardline old-schooler who reluctantly followed the new line.

Ultimately the USSR collapsed under its own weight and internal contradictions. The Russian Federation which succeeded it inherited much of its apparatus, but also had to invent, create or revive much of which was previously lacking. One such absence was a functioning liberal democratic party, and in 1993 one was formed by Gregor Yavlinsky, Yuri Boldyrev and Vladimir Lukin. The party name, an acronym of their surnames, is Yabloko, which is also the Russian for ‘apple’. The party hit its electoral apex in in the early to mid 1990s, though never gaining more than 10% of the popular vote. The subsequent years have seen its presence almost wiped out.

Apple, shackles, lemon

One less savoury note is the revival of various forms of nationalism in modern Russia. Eduard Limonov (you guessed it) is one of the more colourful demagogues, who exemplifies the National Bolshevik weltanschauung. This shady character has in more recent times attempted respectability in co-operation with Gary Kasparov’s United Civil Front, prompting a split within the NBP itself. The United Civil Front is part of a wider coalition known as Other Russia, which was formed out of a discontent with the increasingly authoritarian methods of Vladimir Putin.

Putin’s name could not be for a moment confused with any kind of berry or other fruit — in this case, the closest we get is ‘putiy’, meaning ‘shackles’. Any speculation as to its aptness must, of necessity, be fruitless.

Berlin Wall photographers

August 11th, 2011

For almost half its lifetime, the Berlin wall has existed in a strange afterlife — not as a border, but as a tourist attraction, a surreal remnant of Berlin’s history. The wall — fifty years old this week — is one of the most visited attractions in Europe.

The images below are of the wall, and its daily army of photographers, during this anniversary week. The remains of the Berlin wall are a living part of a living city, and this daily influx of onlookers brings the city’s past into its present, day after day, year after year, even as the grim past of the wall is commemorated.

Berlin wall photographers

Berlin wall photographers

Berlin wall photographers

Berlin wall photographers

Berlin wall photographers

Berlin wall photographers

Berlin wall photographers

Berlin wall photographers

Berlin wall photographers

Soviet war graves, Stolzenhagen, eastern Germany

August 9th, 2011

The colossal number of Soviet soldiers and citizens killed in World War II is almost beyond imagining. The deaths, variously estimated at somewhere between twenty and twenty-six million people, continue to cast an enormous shadow over Russia and the former Eastern Bloc. Anyone hoping to understand the history and politics of Europe has to attempt to understand this vast sacrifice. The Soviet (predominantly Russian) war dead are, in a sense, the real ghosts who are haunting Europe.

One of the legacies of this terrifying history is the presence of Soviet war graves throughout Eastern Europe. The largest ones, such as the Treptower Park war memorial, were built as triumphalist assertions of Soviet dominance. But many more exist in hidden and semi-forgotten places. One such place is the woods outside Stolzenhagen, Brandenburg — a small and quiet village near the German-Polish border. On a hilltop clearing, there are ten graves, enclosed by a low fence.

Soviet war grave, Stolzenhagen

The graves.

Soviet war grave, Stolzenhagen

Boulder with plaque.

Soviet war grave, Stolzenhagen

The plaque beside the entrance. In Russian, the text reads:

Вечная слава Советским воинам павшим в боях за свободу и независимость нашей Родины
Живущие бесконечно
благодарны Вам

Approximate English translation:

Undying glory to the Soviet soldiers who fell in the struggle for the freedom and independence of our homeland
Living eternally
Thank you

Soviet war grave, Stolzenhagen

View of one side.

Soviet war grave, Stolzenhagen

Two graves, with the forest beyond.

Soviet war grave, Stolzenhagen

Inside the enclosure.

Soviet war grave, Stolzenhagen

The site is maintained as an official memorial (denkmal) and marked as such.

In step with the times

June 26th, 2011

As was reported during the week, the Monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia, Bulgaria, was given a pop-art makeover last week. The heroic proletarian soldiers of the postwar sculpture were reimagined as comic-book superheroes, and the punchline “в крак с времето” (Russian for “in step with the times”) was added to the plinth.

Reimagined Red Army, Sofia

The tone of coverage of the story by different media outlets is revealing. RIA Novosti, the Russian media portal, had this lede:

Bulgarian policemen are looking for a vandal who defiled a monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia on Saturday night.

Whereas the Guardian (UK) had a different tack:

There was Superman in red leather boots, Ronald McDonald clutching a bottle of beer, and Santa Claus about to look through a pair of binoculars.

Historical raw nerve touched, it would appear.

Reimagined Red Army, Sofia

Reimagined Red Army, Sofia

Reimagined Red Army, Sofia

Reimagined Red Army, Sofia

Reimagined Red Army, Sofia

Reimagined Red Army, Sofia

Reimagined Red Army, Sofia

Pictures from Budapest Avant-Garde.