Extraordinarily powerful essay on this Putin’s war from Maria Stepanova:- a poet & writer living in Russia. Her latest book, ‘In Memory of Memory’, was awarded the Big Book Prize, Russia’s main literary award, shortlisted for the International Booker Prize ft.com/content/c27974…
“This particular book has a bad author. Bad in all senses, as a person and as a writer with scant interest in his own characters. He doesn’t care if they survive or die; he doesn’t care what their needs or desires are; &he’s definitely not interested in recognising their freedoms
“The only thing that he cares about is his own authorship, the affirmation of his will, and his control of the text and events.” 
“ This is what is occupying Putin at this moment: the enactment of his personal will, the attempt to rewrite the history of Ukraine and Europe, to change our present and determine our future.”
He plans to draw Ukraine, Russia, Europe, the world (and everyone who is constantly refreshing the live news) into the appalling book he has himself written.”
“He believes that from now on we will exist only within his book; he wants to be our author, our screenwriter, the one who knows how to change our lives for the better”.
He sounds quite a bit mad - or maybe just extraordinarily bad -when it is put like that, doesn’t he?
He sounds quite a bit mad - or maybe just extraordinarily bad -when it is put like that, doesn’t he?
“Putin is waging war in Ukraine with the unwavering fury of a man who has his own scores to settle, who is ready to do anything to win; to win, not as countries win conflicts in an age of nuclear non-proliferation, through negotiation, treaties and compromise…
.. , but as if everything that had significance for him was merely a script, lovingly devised and with a clear compensatory aim.”
“Ukraine must be humiliated, it must lose all the attributes of an independent sovereign state, from its legitimately elected government (its “denazification”) to its army (the country must be demilitarised). It must give up its territorial claims to Donbas and Crimea.”
“But even that is not enough.
Even before any process of negotiation, Ukraine must be ritually punished, publicly, openly, in front of a live audience;
Even before any process of negotiation, Ukraine must be ritually punished, publicly, openly, in front of a live audience;
“ it must be forced to its knees, made an example of, so that its residents and anyone else watching see what happens to those who don’t submit.”
Maybe this is one of the reasons this war has captured peoples minds.
The further-away wars of Syria and Afghanistan fertilised a growing unease that we have been allowing evil to get a grip.
This closer-to-home war has ignited that unease unmistakably.
The further-away wars of Syria and Afghanistan fertilised a growing unease that we have been allowing evil to get a grip.
This closer-to-home war has ignited that unease unmistakably.
“The events of today are occurring in a symbolic space, just as irrevocably as they are occurring physically in the fields and bomb shelters of Ukraine.”
“Ukraine today is the arena of an ancient battle between good and evil, however grandiose that might sound; its outcome affects every one of us, not just Ukraine and Russia.”
“One of the first tasks of the ‘military operation’ was to turn the clock back. Viktor Yanukovych is taken out of the trunk in the attic, only slightly mouldy, and eight years of democratic freedom fade like a dream”
That seems to be fading fast on this bonfire of the vanities
That seems to be fading fast on this bonfire of the vanities
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