Subject
"Bush is reading Dostoyevsky,
but he should be reading Nabokov ... (fwd)
but he should be reading Nabokov ... (fwd)
From
Date
Body
I didn't really mean to open a can of worms which is unrelated to this
site -- so I WILL resist commenting on Bush reading "Speak, Memory!"
GD
From: Phil Howerton <phil@carolina.rr.com>
He might not be the "ideal reader," but I think he might enjoy and learn
from "Speak, Memory." On the other hand, come to think of it, who is the
"ideal reader?"
Phil
Philip F. Howerton, Jr.
2812 Sunset Drive
Charlotte, NC 28209
"To be proud, to be brave, to be free"
----- Original Message -----
From: "Galya Diment" <galya@u.washington.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, May 19, 2002 12:18 PM
Subject: "Bush is reading Dostoyevsky, but he should be reading Nabokov ...
(fwd)
> 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
site -- so I WILL resist commenting on Bush reading "Speak, Memory!"
GD
From: Phil Howerton <phil@carolina.rr.com>
He might not be the "ideal reader," but I think he might enjoy and learn
from "Speak, Memory." On the other hand, come to think of it, who is the
"ideal reader?"
Phil
Philip F. Howerton, Jr.
2812 Sunset Drive
Charlotte, NC 28209
"To be proud, to be brave, to be free"
----- Original Message -----
From: "Galya Diment" <galya@u.washington.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, May 19, 2002 12:18 PM
Subject: "Bush is reading Dostoyevsky, but he should be reading Nabokov ...
(fwd)
> 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