Part of me is genuinely sad to see the same people that produced Pushkin, Tolstoy and Dostoevski be reduced to such a tragic state. People have this odd habit of equating a nation with its leadership… as if every Russian is Putin, or every Chinese is Xi. This is nonsense, of course. Propaganda is a powerful tool. And it will have you marching gleefully towards your own destruction before you know it…
Of course this history is ancient. It is not new. Tolstoy himself had fought in the Crimean War as a young man. He still has that thousand-yard stare even at age 80. It never leaves you. It poisons the soul. And, at times, it inspires great works of art. I once read this description from the artist Alexander Benois, upon meeting Tsar Alexander III as a young man:
“After a performance of the ballet Tsar Kandavl at the Mariinsky Theatre, I first caught sight of the Emperor. I was struck by the size of the man, and although cumbersome and heavy, he was still a mighty figure. There was indeed something of the muzhik [Russian peasant] about him. The look of his bright eyes made quite an impression on me. As he passed where I was standing, he raised his head for a second, and to this day I can remember what I felt as our eyes met. It was a look as cold as steel, in which there was something threatening, even frightening, and it struck me like a blow. The Tsar's gaze! The look of a man who stood above all others, but who carried a monstrous burden and who every minute had to fear for his life and the lives of those closest to him…”
The description always struck me. There is this great, almost innate, reverence for the Big Boss, the guy in charge. For centuries, this man was the Tsar. Then it was Lenin, Stalin, and a succession of new big wigs. Now, it’s been Putin for over 25 years, starting in 1999. The leader will tell you to do something, you do it. Even if it leads to your death. Human life has been cheap in Russia since times immemorial. But at least back in past centuries, Russia still had the birth rates to patch things together again…
Now, the birth rate has plummetted. Pushkin’s statues have been taken down in Ukraine, Dostoevsky’s final handful of descendants live in abject poverty
Footnotes
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