Subject
"Bush is reading Dostoyevsky,
but he should be reading Nabokov ... (fwd)
but he should be reading Nabokov ... (fwd)
From
Date
Body
He doesn't strike me, somehow, as someone whom VN would consider his
"ideal" reader :-) GD
From: Sandy P. Klein <spklein52@hotmail.com>
The New York Times On The Web
The New York Times Week In Review
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/19/weekinreview/19BOHL.html
WESTWARD HO
BECOMING A NORMAL NATION
By CELESTINE BOHLEN
P RESIDENT BUSH told Russia's foreign minister he is preparing for his
first trip to Russia by reading the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the
19th-century author whose works explored the dark recesses of the Russian
soul.
But Mr. Bush has picked the wrong author, Russians say, because the
Russia he will be visiting this week is not the Russia of Dostoyevsky,
with mystical saints and guilt-stricken madmen, but a more rational and
forward-looking nation that is being pushed, prodded and promoted by his
host, President Vladimir V. Putin.
"Bush is reading Dostoyevsky, but he should be reading Nabokov, because
that is where the future is, not the past," said Nina L. Khrushcheva, a
professor in international affairs at the New School University.
Like Dostoyevsky, Mr. Putin is a nationalist. But like Vladimir Nabokov,
the émigré writer, Mr. Putin also seems to have a clear understanding of
what Russia lacks, and of what the West has to offer.
In his two years in office, most particularly since Sept. 11, this former
K.G.B. agent has set Russia's course westward — economically, culturally,
politically and now strategically, through a bilateral arms control
agreement with the United States and a new alliance with NATO that gives
Russia a seat at Europe's head table.
Still, the gap separating Russia and the West, while narrowing, remains
wide — and can be measured in many ways, not just by economic statistics
that show Russia lagging significantly behind even Poland, let alone
Germany, France or the United States.
So is this the historical moment that has beckoned for decades, even
centuries, the moment when Russia becomes a member of the club of
civilized countries? Can it be that Russia — so vast it sprawls across 10
time zones and two continents — is ready to check its baggage at the
door, its history of exotic, often brutal despotism, its messianic
ambitions and its belief in its own special destiny?
WESTERN leaders last week were quick to pronounce the end of one era, and
the opening of a new one. Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, said
that the new Russian-NATO council amounted to a "funeral of the cold
war," and others spoke effusively about Russia's long awaited integration
into Europe.
But to many Russians, these pronouncements seemed both short-sighted and
outdated. On one hand, they say, the cold war ended more than a decade
ago, with the political reforms begun by Soviet President Mikhail S.
Gorbachev, which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and then of the
Soviet Union itself.
"I am sick and tired of attending funerals for the cold war," said
Vyacheslav Nikonov, head of the Politika Foundation, a research group.
"Gorbachev ended the cold war in 1989. It died then, and I think it is
still dead."
On the other hand, Russia has proved resistant to change in the past at
least as far back as Peter the Great, who in the 17th and 18th centuries
tried to modernize and Westernize his country. Even the communist
revolution of 1917, many argue, only perpetuated a traditional despotism
with an imperialist foreign policy, even if clothed in the language of
Marx and Lenin.
"The process has begun," was a phrase used by Mr. Gorbachev in those
years (in Russian, the phrase is more vivid, suggesting a train that has
left the station). But from the Russian perspective, that process is far
from over.
RUSSIA is getting closer, and the West is letting it get closer," said
Ms. Khrushcheva, a granddaughter of the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
"But the process is not always linear, and that is not only Russia's
doing. We have centuries of mistrust between us, and they cannot be
overcome in 10, or 20 years. This is one chapter in a series of chapters,
and all that we can say is that the chapters are getting shorter."
Otto Latsis, a political commentator at the newspaper Noviye Izvestia,
also believes that Russia's rapprochement with the West still has a way
to go. "I agree with the word historical," he said, referring to last
week's headlines about Russia's new relationship with NATO, "but not with
the word moment. This is the subject of an eternal debate that has been
going on for hundreds of years. The adoption of the Western model for
Russia is the key question behind our economic reforms, and it is the key
to our political change. It can only be a process, a long and difficult
one, with twists and turns."
Even if they couldn't quite comprehend it a decade ago, most Russians
have now come to understand that the loss of their superpower status was
the price they had to pay to become a "normal" country — if by normal
they meant free, democratic and market-oriented. And as painful as that
can be sometimes, most Russians have made peace with their choice.
Even before Sept. 11, Mr. Putin seemed ready to accept that reality and
make the best of it, by choosing to cooperate with the West, rather than
confront it.
But he has done so in the face of resistance from much of Russia's
institutional elite, from the military and the remnants of the old Soviet
foreign policy establishment, many of whom still bridle at the
concessions made by Mr. Gorbachev as the cold war was winding down.
"For Russia, it is difficult to become a minor partner," said Anatoli I.
Utkin, director of international studies at the Institute for U.S. and
Canadian Studies in Moscow. "Since 1480, with the defeat of the Mongols,
Russia has never been in second place to anyone. It is difficult to
imagine that Russia would ever be happy to be behind the leader, just one
member of a pack."
And yet, as many argue, Russia really has no choice. The Soviet Union
bankrupted itself by keeping its economy on a war footing for 60 years,
Mr. Latsis said. "Now our economy is even worse off," he said. "So how
could we conduct ourselves like a superpower? On the basis of what? I can
believe that there are some people in the Pentagon who would like to
destroy Russia, as they did the Soviet Union, but we should not take up
their challenge."
MANY Russians still harbor deep misgivings about the West — or rather
about the West's intentions toward Russia. Those feelings are
particularly strong among the elite, but then, as Mr. Nikonov said, here
Mr. Putin benefits from the Russian tradition of a strong, even
all-powerful leader.
"Russia is still a czarist country where the elite can be ignored," said
Mr. Nikonov.
In any case, he added, the general population has more positive feelings
towards the West in general, and the United States in particular. Only
twice in the last decade have those feelings soured significantly: once
during the American-led bombing campaign in Yugoslavia in 1998, and again
during the Salt Lake City Olympics, when Russians felt that their top
figure-skaters were the victims of an anti-Russian hysteria generated in
the North American press.
The vehemence of the Russian reaction to these events reflects, in part,
a sensitivity over their country's weakened position. For many Russians,
the bombs that fell on Serbia, a Russian client state, were an ominous
hint that bombs could fall again on Russian targets, should Washington
will it. At Salt Lake City, too, Russians felt powerless, voiceless and
victimized.
So far, the larger strategic issues raised by Russia's new role at NATO,
or the terms of the latest arms control agreement, seem barely to have
registered on Russian public opinion. But that could change, some experts
predict, as NATO takes on the Baltic states as members, or if the
American military presence in Central Asia and in Georgia looks set to
become long-term.
These issues — and others, like a possible American invasion of Iraq —
could upset the delicate balance built into Russia's relations with the
West, and could, some argue, even lead to Mr. Putin's eventual eclipse —
just as Mr. Gorbachev is thought to have dug his own political grave by
being overly eager in his accommodation of the West.
"There is a feeling of déjà vu," Mr. Utkin said. "For the second time,
Russia is going bearing gifts." The question is whether this time, it
will get enough in return to warrant staying the course.
Russia's democracy has advanced since Communist hard-liners mounted a
coup against Mr. Gorbachev in 1991: Mr. Putin, unlike Mr. Gorbachev, was
popularly elected, and today enjoys a popularity rating of 70 percent or
more, about equal to Mr. Bush's.
THESE things can change, however, and there is no guarantee — either
institutional or cultural — that Russians next time won't swing away from
Mr. Putin's pro-Western policies, leaving the next leader with the same
broad powers to move in an entirely different direction.
"Essentially we are talking about two approaches," Mr. Utkin said. "One,
taken from American folklore, is if you can't beat them, join them. The
other path, which was taken by Winston Churchill or Charles de Gaulle, is
to show defiance even in defeat."
How would the second approach be put into effect? "This is a big country,
a very patriotic country, and people could be made ready for
mobilization," Mr. Utkin said.
In other words, the debate over Russia's role in the world and history is
not over. Even as the Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov was clasping
hands with Western leaders at a NATO meeting in Reykjavik, Mr. Putin was
playing host to five presidents of ex-Soviet Republics who came to Moscow
to turn a 1992 military alliance into a formal organization.
"This is a kind of insurance policy," Mr. Utkin said, "a guarantee
against being melted into the crowd, being put somewhere between Portugal
and Spain."
________________________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: Click Here
"ideal" reader :-) GD
From: Sandy P. Klein <spklein52@hotmail.com>
The New York Times On The Web
The New York Times Week In Review
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/19/weekinreview/19BOHL.html
WESTWARD HO
BECOMING A NORMAL NATION
By CELESTINE BOHLEN
P RESIDENT BUSH told Russia's foreign minister he is preparing for his
first trip to Russia by reading the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the
19th-century author whose works explored the dark recesses of the Russian
soul.
But Mr. Bush has picked the wrong author, Russians say, because the
Russia he will be visiting this week is not the Russia of Dostoyevsky,
with mystical saints and guilt-stricken madmen, but a more rational and
forward-looking nation that is being pushed, prodded and promoted by his
host, President Vladimir V. Putin.
"Bush is reading Dostoyevsky, but he should be reading Nabokov, because
that is where the future is, not the past," said Nina L. Khrushcheva, a
professor in international affairs at the New School University.
Like Dostoyevsky, Mr. Putin is a nationalist. But like Vladimir Nabokov,
the émigré writer, Mr. Putin also seems to have a clear understanding of
what Russia lacks, and of what the West has to offer.
In his two years in office, most particularly since Sept. 11, this former
K.G.B. agent has set Russia's course westward — economically, culturally,
politically and now strategically, through a bilateral arms control
agreement with the United States and a new alliance with NATO that gives
Russia a seat at Europe's head table.
Still, the gap separating Russia and the West, while narrowing, remains
wide — and can be measured in many ways, not just by economic statistics
that show Russia lagging significantly behind even Poland, let alone
Germany, France or the United States.
So is this the historical moment that has beckoned for decades, even
centuries, the moment when Russia becomes a member of the club of
civilized countries? Can it be that Russia — so vast it sprawls across 10
time zones and two continents — is ready to check its baggage at the
door, its history of exotic, often brutal despotism, its messianic
ambitions and its belief in its own special destiny?
WESTERN leaders last week were quick to pronounce the end of one era, and
the opening of a new one. Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, said
that the new Russian-NATO council amounted to a "funeral of the cold
war," and others spoke effusively about Russia's long awaited integration
into Europe.
But to many Russians, these pronouncements seemed both short-sighted and
outdated. On one hand, they say, the cold war ended more than a decade
ago, with the political reforms begun by Soviet President Mikhail S.
Gorbachev, which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and then of the
Soviet Union itself.
"I am sick and tired of attending funerals for the cold war," said
Vyacheslav Nikonov, head of the Politika Foundation, a research group.
"Gorbachev ended the cold war in 1989. It died then, and I think it is
still dead."
On the other hand, Russia has proved resistant to change in the past at
least as far back as Peter the Great, who in the 17th and 18th centuries
tried to modernize and Westernize his country. Even the communist
revolution of 1917, many argue, only perpetuated a traditional despotism
with an imperialist foreign policy, even if clothed in the language of
Marx and Lenin.
"The process has begun," was a phrase used by Mr. Gorbachev in those
years (in Russian, the phrase is more vivid, suggesting a train that has
left the station). But from the Russian perspective, that process is far
from over.
RUSSIA is getting closer, and the West is letting it get closer," said
Ms. Khrushcheva, a granddaughter of the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
"But the process is not always linear, and that is not only Russia's
doing. We have centuries of mistrust between us, and they cannot be
overcome in 10, or 20 years. This is one chapter in a series of chapters,
and all that we can say is that the chapters are getting shorter."
Otto Latsis, a political commentator at the newspaper Noviye Izvestia,
also believes that Russia's rapprochement with the West still has a way
to go. "I agree with the word historical," he said, referring to last
week's headlines about Russia's new relationship with NATO, "but not with
the word moment. This is the subject of an eternal debate that has been
going on for hundreds of years. The adoption of the Western model for
Russia is the key question behind our economic reforms, and it is the key
to our political change. It can only be a process, a long and difficult
one, with twists and turns."
Even if they couldn't quite comprehend it a decade ago, most Russians
have now come to understand that the loss of their superpower status was
the price they had to pay to become a "normal" country — if by normal
they meant free, democratic and market-oriented. And as painful as that
can be sometimes, most Russians have made peace with their choice.
Even before Sept. 11, Mr. Putin seemed ready to accept that reality and
make the best of it, by choosing to cooperate with the West, rather than
confront it.
But he has done so in the face of resistance from much of Russia's
institutional elite, from the military and the remnants of the old Soviet
foreign policy establishment, many of whom still bridle at the
concessions made by Mr. Gorbachev as the cold war was winding down.
"For Russia, it is difficult to become a minor partner," said Anatoli I.
Utkin, director of international studies at the Institute for U.S. and
Canadian Studies in Moscow. "Since 1480, with the defeat of the Mongols,
Russia has never been in second place to anyone. It is difficult to
imagine that Russia would ever be happy to be behind the leader, just one
member of a pack."
And yet, as many argue, Russia really has no choice. The Soviet Union
bankrupted itself by keeping its economy on a war footing for 60 years,
Mr. Latsis said. "Now our economy is even worse off," he said. "So how
could we conduct ourselves like a superpower? On the basis of what? I can
believe that there are some people in the Pentagon who would like to
destroy Russia, as they did the Soviet Union, but we should not take up
their challenge."
MANY Russians still harbor deep misgivings about the West — or rather
about the West's intentions toward Russia. Those feelings are
particularly strong among the elite, but then, as Mr. Nikonov said, here
Mr. Putin benefits from the Russian tradition of a strong, even
all-powerful leader.
"Russia is still a czarist country where the elite can be ignored," said
Mr. Nikonov.
In any case, he added, the general population has more positive feelings
towards the West in general, and the United States in particular. Only
twice in the last decade have those feelings soured significantly: once
during the American-led bombing campaign in Yugoslavia in 1998, and again
during the Salt Lake City Olympics, when Russians felt that their top
figure-skaters were the victims of an anti-Russian hysteria generated in
the North American press.
The vehemence of the Russian reaction to these events reflects, in part,
a sensitivity over their country's weakened position. For many Russians,
the bombs that fell on Serbia, a Russian client state, were an ominous
hint that bombs could fall again on Russian targets, should Washington
will it. At Salt Lake City, too, Russians felt powerless, voiceless and
victimized.
So far, the larger strategic issues raised by Russia's new role at NATO,
or the terms of the latest arms control agreement, seem barely to have
registered on Russian public opinion. But that could change, some experts
predict, as NATO takes on the Baltic states as members, or if the
American military presence in Central Asia and in Georgia looks set to
become long-term.
These issues — and others, like a possible American invasion of Iraq —
could upset the delicate balance built into Russia's relations with the
West, and could, some argue, even lead to Mr. Putin's eventual eclipse —
just as Mr. Gorbachev is thought to have dug his own political grave by
being overly eager in his accommodation of the West.
"There is a feeling of déjà vu," Mr. Utkin said. "For the second time,
Russia is going bearing gifts." The question is whether this time, it
will get enough in return to warrant staying the course.
Russia's democracy has advanced since Communist hard-liners mounted a
coup against Mr. Gorbachev in 1991: Mr. Putin, unlike Mr. Gorbachev, was
popularly elected, and today enjoys a popularity rating of 70 percent or
more, about equal to Mr. Bush's.
THESE things can change, however, and there is no guarantee — either
institutional or cultural — that Russians next time won't swing away from
Mr. Putin's pro-Western policies, leaving the next leader with the same
broad powers to move in an entirely different direction.
"Essentially we are talking about two approaches," Mr. Utkin said. "One,
taken from American folklore, is if you can't beat them, join them. The
other path, which was taken by Winston Churchill or Charles de Gaulle, is
to show defiance even in defeat."
How would the second approach be put into effect? "This is a big country,
a very patriotic country, and people could be made ready for
mobilization," Mr. Utkin said.
In other words, the debate over Russia's role in the world and history is
not over. Even as the Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov was clasping
hands with Western leaders at a NATO meeting in Reykjavik, Mr. Putin was
playing host to five presidents of ex-Soviet Republics who came to Moscow
to turn a 1992 military alliance into a formal organization.
"This is a kind of insurance policy," Mr. Utkin said, "a guarantee
against being melted into the crowd, being put somewhere between Portugal
and Spain."
________________________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: Click Here