My participation in the Paul Klebnikov Fund’s event “What is Russia Thinking? The Word from the Last of the Independent Media” was a great honor. Paul’s widow Musa Klebnikov and his brothers Peter and Michael were amazingly gracious and thankful for my participation. The pleasure however was truly all mine. They’ve built a vary warm, lively, sophisticated and touching community around Paul’s memory. Being a part of it was certainly an emotional and intellectual experience. For those who’ve never read Paul Klebnikov’s work, I highly recommend it.
What of the event itself? I would say that well over 100 people were in attendance. Being in a crowd of such politically well connected people was intimidating at first. I still consider myself a lowly graduate student who lacks the proper credentials to mix with such a crowd. But thankfully people were incredibly nice and any nervousness I had wasn’t anything that a few glasses of wine couldn’t smooth out. Most attendees seemed to have some connection to Paul, whether they were friends and neighbors, colleagues, or admirers of his work. At the same time, many people who I talked to had a deep interest in Russia, and particular America’s relationship to it. What was perhaps most encouraging was that many appeared frustrated with the typical thinking about Russia, and my sense was that there was a real craving for a more nuanced discourse. Hopefully, Mikhail Fishman, Sarah Medelson, Andrew Meier and I provided that.
The forum was a dialogue that lasted around an hour and followed by a half and hour of questions. As often the case in forums like this, not to mention topics as complicated as Russia, time proved to be our greatest enemy. Not only was there not enough time to cover everything, there was barely enough time to adequately address the questions Andrew Meier posed to us. Topics ranged from what advice we would give Barack Obama in formulating a Russia policy, the workings of Kremlin politics, the state of Russian journalism and English language journalism on Russia, the Georgian War, the effects of the economic crisis, and the state and future of Russian-American relations. I won’t recount the details of the discussion. I doubt my memory would do it justice. I’m told that the event was recorded and I will provide information about how to get access to that when I find out.
The star of the event was Mikhail Fishman, this year’s recipient of the Paul Klebnikov Prize for Excellence in Journalism. By all accounts, Fishman is one of the “rising stars” of Russian journalism. Fishman covers Russian politics for Russian Newsweek, though he wonders how much time he will have to do this since he was just recently promoted to the magazine’s chief editorship. If Fishman’s comments at the forum were any indication, his stewardship of Russian Newsweek will certainly be something to follow.
What was the final answer to the event’s title/question: What is Russia thinking? Well to paraphrase how Andrew Meier ended the evening: We don’t fully know what Russia is thinking, but we know what the three participants think about Russia. Very true. Speaking for myself, I would never presume I could speak for Russia or Russians. My only hope is that through this blog and participating in events like Monday’s, I can at least attempt to be a fair mediator for Russians to speak and think for themselves.
As I understand, ‘blood’ makes one a Hebrew, religious devotion makes one a Jew..
Again, I think this is a foolish comment and largely unnecessary due to the nature of the Jewish community and faith.
There are not large numbers of converts to Judaism. People can convert, of course, but my understanding is that it isn’t so simple as in many other faiths. The Jewish community around the world is fairly tight or closed, which is historically one of the reasons prejudice and distrust have been pointed in their direction. Judaism defines itself as a nation or people as well, citing biblical references and sources.
So to make this distinction between Hebrew and Jew is largely unnecessary. Perhaps you meant to make a different distinction, such as Sabra versus Jew.
Doom wonders if Sean has ever read Razgovor s varvarom, the book that alleged resulted in Klebnikov’s murder. It would be unpublishable in the US.
Gee, CD, you really don’t seem to have a grip on what is published or done on radio or TV here in the USA. Have you been away from the country so long that you’ve forgotten – or simply been brain-washed over time?
Just to start and scratch the surface of how wrong you are – consider for example the television interviews and books written from conversations with Tim McVeigh.
How about “Will You Die With Me? My Life and the Black Panther Party” by Flores Forbes?
You can’t possibly have forgotten about the US television interviews with Shamil Basayev?
I’m all for offering critical opinions of how things are done here in the US, but let’s stick to reality. Many interviews and books about and even written by terrorists are published in the US.
“Speaking of which, this is pretty cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAZFKhKUY7M&mode=related&search=”
I never thought I’ll see a moment in which I actually sympathize with Zhirinovsky. Thanks for the link, Chris.
“Gee, CD, you really don’t seem to have a grip on what is published or done on radio or TV here in the USA. Have you been away from the country so long that you’ve forgotten – or simply been brain-washed over time?”
I think you’re miscontruing my point, which was 1) that there is no market for such a book and 2) more importantly any translator would be wondering “gee, I wonder if I’ll wind up dead like the author.” Which is why it hasn’t been translated and probably never will be.
“Mentally retarded comment.”
Look here, Shedd, I ain’t gonna take that kind of lip from nobody!
First, my comment was intended as a joke and not to be taken seriously. But since you are dense enough to take it seriously, here is your opportunity to learn something, so make the best of it now.
You say, “Of course in Russia, a local Jewish person is simple a ‘Jew’.”
It was repeated many times and not only by me that there is no word ‘Jew’ in Russian language, the word there is ‘Evrei’ (Hebrew). So remember that. Just like in America nobody says ‘Hebrew’, in Russia nobody says ‘Jew’. Complete reversal, if you will. Why is that important? Because we are talking about people that grew up in and were defined by Russian cultural and linguistic milieu. So American idiom becomes useless here and Russian idiom becomes paramount. And in Russian language, distinctions are very clear: there are “evrei’ (with strong emphasis on ethnicity) and there are ‘iudei’ (with strong emphasis on religion) and they are not one and the same. Part of the reason for that is that while Americans never knew non-Hebrew Jews, Russians knew plenty through their history. Heck, there is a legend that Saint Vladimir was courted by Rabbis, Imams and Catholic priest when he was choosing religion for his subjects. So there was a chance the whole Russia could go ‘Iudei’. There was also powerful Khazar kaganat the young Russian state had many dealings with (Khazars were Tartars practicing Judaism). Interestingly, the term ‘iudei’ in Russian is not perjorative and may be even used respectfully.
If all that new knowledge, freely shared, doesn’t make you want to offer me an apology, you take that apology and stick it up your ‘tokhes’, all I can say.
I knew you were kidding, Candide, when you brought up vouchers : ) Also, Obama hasn’t taken office yet – so I got that joke too.
Thanks for the kind word, tess.
“(Khazars were Tartars practicing Judaism).”
No they weren’t. They were a Turkic empire that the elite of which adopted a variety Judaism for likely geopolitical reasons.
Thanks for the correction about Khazars being Turkic people. I fail to see the point of elite role. Of course elites had a big say. One might as well put that Kievan Rus elite adopted Byzantine Christianity “for likely geopolitical reasons”.
Because there is little evidence that the Khazar Empire adopted Judaism en masse. Its, er, ruling classes did. (Unlike say Rus’ adoption of Orthodoxy in which the old religion was wiped out.)
It took hundreds of years to make Russia nominally Christian. Paganism persisted for quite a while. Christianity was obviously imposed from the top, all historical records attest to that.
Also, I don’t know how well justified is the the categorical expression “wipe out”, considering that Christian veneer is covering ancient Pagan rites (and not only in Russia but in most old Christian countries). ‘Piggy-backing’ comes to mind, actually.