Russia (Federation) - History - Social Aspects

Dead Again

Name: Dead Again
Author: Masha Gessen
ISBN: 9781859848418

by Masha Gessen

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Overview

A vivid portrait of the Russian intelligentsia "after the fall." Isaiah Berlin onceargued that the concept of the intelligentsia was "Russia's greatest contribution to world civilization". Since the mid-nineteenth century, the Russian intelligentsia has shared a profound sense of responsibility for the fate of its country and a belief in the transformative power of the Word — a belief reinforced by the state, which has relentlessly tried to suppress any form of intellectual dissent. Starting with Glasnost, this belief has been sorely tested. The floodgates of information opened, but no miracle followed. Indeed, the novelty of free speech quickly wore off. While the intelligentsia was watching its most treasured dream disintegrate, it was also losing its social standing, its prestige and, finally, its money. As it had frequently done in the past, the intelligentsia responded by declaring itself dead, obsolete. Once again, it was the end. Masha Gessen, one of the most perceptive of a new generation of correspondents in Russia, does not share this pessimism. Her fascinating book is the first to examine the ways in which intellectuals are finding new identities — or survival strategies — in the present social and political maelstrom. Through a series of extraordinary individual stories, she shows their quest for a new faith, be it religion or the paranormal, a commitment to nationalist ideology, or to feminist principles. She shows, too, their search for a place in the new society, as artist or politician, entrepreneur or neo-dissident Her accounts of their careers and preoccupations can be inspiring or harrowing, and sometimes hilarious. Finally, Masha Gessen considersthe prospects for future generations of intellectuals, giving a vivid and disturbing portrait of Russia's outcast Generation X.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Cahners\\Publishers_Weekly

With keen understanding of the Russian ethos and of the conflicts between the Westernizers and Slavophiles, freelance journalist Gessen, a Russian émigré who has now returned home, tackles the venue of how her country's intelligentsia survived with integrity in the USSR, and what today's climate augurs for them, especially those who came of age during the 1970s. She broods on how the honorable arrange their lives in a dishonorable society. Under Communism the collective conscience of intellectuals directed that personal ethics could be preserved only in certain kinds of jobs, such as a watchman in a non-strategic industry; some found refuge in non-crucial fields of scholarship like mathematics and in minor research institutes. Many of them were novelists, playwrights, poets. The people discussed in this book are not the much-publicized dissidents, and their names are often unfamiliar, other than the likes of Andrei Sakharov and the Orthodox priest Alexander Men, whose moral weight was viewed as heroic. In the New Russia many of the intellectuals have become successful entrepreneurs; several turned to politics but with limited effectiveness. Less adaptable, or perhaps simply apathetic, are those born later: among the highly educated in their 30s, one in three is unemployed, as are half of all recent college graduates. United under Communism, when the Party fell, the opposition intelligentsia splintered and the "once-glorious concept" disintegrated. Gessen assesses the new times with a stimulating and instructive new perspective.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

With keen understanding of the Russian ethos and of the conflicts between the Westernizers and Slavophiles, freelance journalist Gessen, a Russian migr who has now returned home, tackles the venue of how her country's intelligentsia survived with integrity in the USSR, and what today's climate augurs for them, especially those who came of age during the 1970s. She broods on how the honorable arrange their lives in a dishonorable society. Under Communism the collective conscience of intellectuals directed that personal ethics could be preserved only in certain kinds of jobs, such as a watchman in a non-strategic industry; some found refuge in non-crucial fields of scholarship like mathematics and in minor research institutes. Many of them were novelists, playwrights, poets. The people discussed in this book are not the much-publicized dissidents, and their names are often unfamiliar, other than the likes of Andrei Sakharov and the Orthodox priest Alexander Men, whose moral weight was viewed as heroic. In the New Russia many of the intellectuals have become successful entrepreneurs; several turned to politics but with limited effectiveness. Less adaptable, or perhaps simply apathetic, are those born later: among the highly educated in their 30s, one in three is unemployed, as are half of all recent college graduates. United under Communism, when the Party fell, the opposition intelligentsia splintered and the "once-glorious concept" disintegrated. Gessen assesses the new times with a stimulating and instructive new perspective. (June)