On the Moscow metro
May 31, 2013 10:36 PM Subscribe
"Russia lacks the concept of respect for another person simply because he or she is another person, a unique, independent individual. It is therefore useless to say here: “I’m gay and I have rights.” What you can say instead is “I’m a well-known writer and, besides, I’m gay and I have rights.” Or “I’m a prominent scientist, and, besides, I’m gay and I have rights." Or else, “I’m a famous athlete, and, besides, I’m gay and I have rights,” and so on."
When did Russia become the United States? When did the United States become everywhere else? Ich bin ein Berliner?
posted by artof.mulata at 1:04 AM on June 1, 2013
When did Russia become the United States? When did the United States become everywhere else? Ich bin ein Berliner?
posted by artof.mulata at 1:04 AM on June 1, 2013
Also, this is a fantastic essay. Thanks for posting.
posted by artof.mulata at 1:05 AM on June 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by artof.mulata at 1:05 AM on June 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
artof.mulata, if I understand what he's saying, it's that the politico-legal history of Russia does not have the same basis in individualism as most constitutional democracies in the West, and therefore much of someone's social protection comes from status, caste, and corporate (in the political sense, i.e. syndicalist) affiliation. This is made more brutal and stark by a shared experience with the totalitarian prison state.
I think much of what he describes in terms of prison society is mirrored in Western prisons and in social groupings that are heavily involved in prisons, e.g. urban gangs and ghettoes. But at least in the West individualism can triumph as argument, wheras in post-Soviet Russia, such philosophy is considered something of a luxury, i.e. decadent.
A Hegelian dialectic of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, if you will.
posted by dhartung at 1:28 AM on June 1, 2013 [7 favorites]
I think much of what he describes in terms of prison society is mirrored in Western prisons and in social groupings that are heavily involved in prisons, e.g. urban gangs and ghettoes. But at least in the West individualism can triumph as argument, wheras in post-Soviet Russia, such philosophy is considered something of a luxury, i.e. decadent.
A Hegelian dialectic of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, if you will.
posted by dhartung at 1:28 AM on June 1, 2013 [7 favorites]
A well written, insightful and thought-provoking essay. The Words Without Borders website where the article appears is itself intriguing as well, with a decade's worth of English-translated international writing freely available to explore. Thanks for posting this.
posted by NetizenKen at 5:07 AM on June 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by NetizenKen at 5:07 AM on June 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
Really great article but I got distracted by...
"...for many decades one of the most beloved genres of popular music in Russia has been the so-called “Russian chanson,” cynical or maudlin ballads, always sung in a hoarse guttural voice, relating the lives of thieves or gangsters."
Holy shit Russian Narcocorrido? I need to hear this.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:18 AM on June 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
"...for many decades one of the most beloved genres of popular music in Russia has been the so-called “Russian chanson,” cynical or maudlin ballads, always sung in a hoarse guttural voice, relating the lives of thieves or gangsters."
Holy shit Russian Narcocorrido? I need to hear this.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:18 AM on June 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
Hi dhartung, I gathered that.
My comment was more to the effect that the case is the same in the West. Plenty of people wonder why it's your status that makes your statement more profound. Witness the weird dance going around about who's coming out in the NFL.
The concept of an individual as a solemn body, whole and hallowed, in the West and not elsewhere is enshrined in philosophy, but doesn't often reify in lived experience.
posted by artof.mulata at 5:41 AM on June 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
My comment was more to the effect that the case is the same in the West. Plenty of people wonder why it's your status that makes your statement more profound. Witness the weird dance going around about who's coming out in the NFL.
The concept of an individual as a solemn body, whole and hallowed, in the West and not elsewhere is enshrined in philosophy, but doesn't often reify in lived experience.
posted by artof.mulata at 5:41 AM on June 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
My comment was more to the effect that the case is the same in the West. Plenty of people wonder why it's your status that makes your statement more profound. Witness the weird dance going around about who's coming out in the NFL.
However, polls in the US (and maybe else, I don't know ) suggest that support for things like marriage equality is greater among people who know a queer person or even have just talked to a queer person about their relationship. This is why Minnesota spent so much time phone banking. It's pretty hard to appeal rationally to undecided straight people. But "This nice person who lives at the other end of the state phoned and told me about their family" might do it. I really have no idea if this would be a less viable strategy in Russia.
There's definitely some inside politics of Russia gay community going on in this essay that I don't really understand. The author seems to think they should adopt a strategy other than getting beaten up and arrested at Pride, but I'm not really sure why he doesn't like that strategy (besides that it hasn't worked and getting beaten up sucks, I guess) nor what he wants to do instead.
posted by hoyland at 6:04 AM on June 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
However, polls in the US (and maybe else, I don't know ) suggest that support for things like marriage equality is greater among people who know a queer person or even have just talked to a queer person about their relationship. This is why Minnesota spent so much time phone banking. It's pretty hard to appeal rationally to undecided straight people. But "This nice person who lives at the other end of the state phoned and told me about their family" might do it. I really have no idea if this would be a less viable strategy in Russia.
There's definitely some inside politics of Russia gay community going on in this essay that I don't really understand. The author seems to think they should adopt a strategy other than getting beaten up and arrested at Pride, but I'm not really sure why he doesn't like that strategy (besides that it hasn't worked and getting beaten up sucks, I guess) nor what he wants to do instead.
posted by hoyland at 6:04 AM on June 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
...adopt a strategy other than getting beaten up and arrested at Pride, but I'm not really sure why he doesn't like that strategy (besides that it hasn't worked and getting beaten up sucks...
Well, it's a long term plan, but it does work eventually. See the effect that putting the dogs on Civil Rights protestors had here in the States or the eventual disgust that the country had over the tactic of lynching.
As for the other part of your statement on the Minnesota phone bank appeal, I'm not positing an either/or relation; it's obviously (to me anyway) both. And it's probably the same in Russia regardless of what the poet thinks. Some folks are swayed by metonymic ikons and others by proximity.
posted by artof.mulata at 6:20 AM on June 1, 2013
Well, it's a long term plan, but it does work eventually. See the effect that putting the dogs on Civil Rights protestors had here in the States or the eventual disgust that the country had over the tactic of lynching.
As for the other part of your statement on the Minnesota phone bank appeal, I'm not positing an either/or relation; it's obviously (to me anyway) both. And it's probably the same in Russia regardless of what the poet thinks. Some folks are swayed by metonymic ikons and others by proximity.
posted by artof.mulata at 6:20 AM on June 1, 2013
Really great article but I got distracted by...
"...for many decades one of the most beloved genres of popular music in Russia has been the so-called “Russian chanson,” cynical or maudlin ballads, always sung in a hoarse guttural voice, relating the lives of thieves or gangsters."
Potomac Avenue
Actually I thought his very next line was even better:
It is sad to admit that this half-witted genre has its roots in the work of the honest and talented balladeer Alexander Galich, who wanted to give a voice to the innocent victims of Stalin’s purges...
I love the snooty dismissal of "half-witted genre".
posted by Jody Tresidder at 6:30 AM on June 1, 2013
"...for many decades one of the most beloved genres of popular music in Russia has been the so-called “Russian chanson,” cynical or maudlin ballads, always sung in a hoarse guttural voice, relating the lives of thieves or gangsters."
Potomac Avenue
Actually I thought his very next line was even better:
It is sad to admit that this half-witted genre has its roots in the work of the honest and talented balladeer Alexander Galich, who wanted to give a voice to the innocent victims of Stalin’s purges...
I love the snooty dismissal of "half-witted genre".
posted by Jody Tresidder at 6:30 AM on June 1, 2013
I read about Galich also in the wonderful genre-bending Red Plenty. A little googling reveals there's a fair amount about him online. Seems to have been a pretty significant person in Russian cultural history. Maybe someone will do an awesome FPP about him someday!
posted by latkes at 8:42 AM on June 1, 2013
posted by latkes at 8:42 AM on June 1, 2013
> I love the snooty dismissal of "half-witted genre".
That was the worst thing in the otherwise excellent article, and I'm sorry he felt the need to shit on an art form he happens not to like.
> Holy shit Russian Narcocorrido? I need to hear this.
Here's a nice performance of the well-known "По тундре" ("Through the tundra"), about a couple of friends escaping from a camp in the far North "along the tracks where the Vorkuta-Leningrad train runs," looking forward to getting to the city, where they can steal some more before (inevitably) being sent back to the camps. Great stuff.
posted by languagehat at 8:47 AM on June 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
That was the worst thing in the otherwise excellent article, and I'm sorry he felt the need to shit on an art form he happens not to like.
> Holy shit Russian Narcocorrido? I need to hear this.
Here's a nice performance of the well-known "По тундре" ("Through the tundra"), about a couple of friends escaping from a camp in the far North "along the tracks where the Vorkuta-Leningrad train runs," looking forward to getting to the city, where they can steal some more before (inevitably) being sent back to the camps. Great stuff.
posted by languagehat at 8:47 AM on June 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
The concept of an individual as a solemn body, whole and hallowed, in the West and not elsewhere is enshrined in philosophy, but doesn't often reify in lived experience.
I'd say that what's striking about the politics in the West surrounding gay rights is that, once it became about the dignity and the autonomy of the individual, the legal framework and social norms - substantial pockets of homophobia notwithstanding - really turned on a dime. Tens years for a major shift like that is remarkably fast.
posted by jpe at 9:16 AM on June 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
I'd say that what's striking about the politics in the West surrounding gay rights is that, once it became about the dignity and the autonomy of the individual, the legal framework and social norms - substantial pockets of homophobia notwithstanding - really turned on a dime. Tens years for a major shift like that is remarkably fast.
posted by jpe at 9:16 AM on June 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
Here's a nice performance of the well-known "По тундре"
Блядь, that's a lot of lens flare! Did J.J. Abrams film that video?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:47 AM on June 1, 2013
Блядь, that's a lot of lens flare! Did J.J. Abrams film that video?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:47 AM on June 1, 2013
Tens years for a major shift like that is remarkably fast.
Maybe, but it seemed to me back in the 80s in the Southwest of the U.S. that it was coming. An entire generation of folks came of age surrounded by queered pop icons (Madonna, Bowie, Cyndi Lauper, Michael and Prince, Wham) who were cool so gay became ok.
They tell their kids that and the next thing you know their sons and daughters are coming out of the closet. And maybe the AIDS holocaust allowing for compassion in the face of bigotry. Homophobic politicians and religious leaders getting caught and their followers/cheerleaders having to figure out how to be forgiving. It's a lot to take on many fronts. Something had to give.
Or maybe it was cultural fatigue.
posted by artof.mulata at 9:52 AM on June 1, 2013
Maybe, but it seemed to me back in the 80s in the Southwest of the U.S. that it was coming. An entire generation of folks came of age surrounded by queered pop icons (Madonna, Bowie, Cyndi Lauper, Michael and Prince, Wham) who were cool so gay became ok.
They tell their kids that and the next thing you know their sons and daughters are coming out of the closet. And maybe the AIDS holocaust allowing for compassion in the face of bigotry. Homophobic politicians and religious leaders getting caught and their followers/cheerleaders having to figure out how to be forgiving. It's a lot to take on many fronts. Something had to give.
Or maybe it was cultural fatigue.
posted by artof.mulata at 9:52 AM on June 1, 2013
Great essay. I guess it's unavoidable, but I wondered why one of the first comments in this thread had to switch the conversation to a banal observation of the United States.
I also understood his snooty dismissal of a popular art artform ("shitting on it" as someone I guess is a lot more eloquent than I am put it) is based on the idea that the original intent of the ballads to talk about life in the gulag has been corrupted to instead celebrate anti-social and idiotic gangsterism.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:43 AM on June 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
I also understood his snooty dismissal of a popular art artform ("shitting on it" as someone I guess is a lot more eloquent than I am put it) is based on the idea that the original intent of the ballads to talk about life in the gulag has been corrupted to instead celebrate anti-social and idiotic gangsterism.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:43 AM on June 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
> "shitting on it" as someone I guess is a lot more eloquent than I am put it
Talk about snooty.
> based on the idea that the original intent of the ballads to talk about life in the gulag has been corrupted to instead celebrate anti-social and idiotic gangsterism
Which would be a ridiculous and sentimental idea. These songs were always about celebrating "anti-social and idiotic gangsterism," if you choose to put it that way. Similar songs were written, sung, and loved long before the gulag. Amazingly, bad people can create good songs (and other works of art).
posted by languagehat at 10:49 AM on June 1, 2013
Talk about snooty.
> based on the idea that the original intent of the ballads to talk about life in the gulag has been corrupted to instead celebrate anti-social and idiotic gangsterism
Which would be a ridiculous and sentimental idea. These songs were always about celebrating "anti-social and idiotic gangsterism," if you choose to put it that way. Similar songs were written, sung, and loved long before the gulag. Amazingly, bad people can create good songs (and other works of art).
posted by languagehat at 10:49 AM on June 1, 2013
I guess I just don't have the elevated sense it takes to determine when it's appropriate to use good old Anglo Saxon cuss words.
posted by KokuRyu at 12:21 PM on June 1, 2013
posted by KokuRyu at 12:21 PM on June 1, 2013
An FPP on Russian shanson. For the record, I also find it a little sickening as a symptom of criminalization of civic life. But maybe I've read too many LJ debates about whether journalists should put up with intimidation and extralegal deadly violence, because that's what "a real man does" or whatever.
posted by Nomyte at 7:28 PM on June 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Nomyte at 7:28 PM on June 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
In the catalogue of sins in his Divine Comedy, which is as random...
*glances at 10' pole*
It will surely be followed by some other kind of future, when today’s heated arguments about who can and who can’t sleep with whom will come to seem incomprehensible nonsense,
I can see that happening in Russia, but the Russian character, and the straining edge of violence maelstrom of underground public transportation, remaining as stable as Russian concrete for the next 1000 years.
posted by Smedleyman at 8:12 PM on June 1, 2013
*glances at 10' pole*
It will surely be followed by some other kind of future, when today’s heated arguments about who can and who can’t sleep with whom will come to seem incomprehensible nonsense,
I can see that happening in Russia, but the Russian character, and the straining edge of violence maelstrom of underground public transportation, remaining as stable as Russian concrete for the next 1000 years.
posted by Smedleyman at 8:12 PM on June 1, 2013
A revealing map of the countries that are most and least tolerant of homosexuality
posted by homunculus at 2:38 PM on June 5, 2013
posted by homunculus at 2:38 PM on June 5, 2013
latkes: "And a critique of the revealing map."
While I agree with much of the critique, the author of that post is totally trying to sort people into 'authorities you should trust' and 'everyone else, who's a hack'. Note the "as the scholar Steve Saideman pointed out" in comparison to the disdainful discussion of "foreign affairs bloggers" and "Swedish economists". Why is Saideman a 'scholar' and not a 'political scientist'? Saideman is also a lot less critical than I think that post makes him out to be. Presumably because he doesn't have an axe to grind about foreign policy blogs.
It's also worth nothing it's a critique of a different map. It'll suffer from the some of the same concerns, but not all of them.
posted by hoyland at 5:37 AM on June 6, 2013
While I agree with much of the critique, the author of that post is totally trying to sort people into 'authorities you should trust' and 'everyone else, who's a hack'. Note the "as the scholar Steve Saideman pointed out" in comparison to the disdainful discussion of "foreign affairs bloggers" and "Swedish economists". Why is Saideman a 'scholar' and not a 'political scientist'? Saideman is also a lot less critical than I think that post makes him out to be. Presumably because he doesn't have an axe to grind about foreign policy blogs.
It's also worth nothing it's a critique of a different map. It'll suffer from the some of the same concerns, but not all of them.
posted by hoyland at 5:37 AM on June 6, 2013
Why Is Russia So Homophobic? Communist-era justifications for bigotry don't make sense anymore. What's behind lawmakers' opposition to gays?
posted by homunculus at 3:43 PM on June 13, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by homunculus at 3:43 PM on June 13, 2013 [2 favorites]
Russia's gays fear more violence after brutal murder
posted by homunculus at 6:55 PM on June 13, 2013
posted by homunculus at 6:55 PM on June 13, 2013
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posted by progosk at 11:04 PM on May 31, 2013