{"id":1683446,"date":"2022-10-11T11:17:58","date_gmt":"2022-10-11T15:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1683446"},"modified":"2022-10-11T11:20:56","modified_gmt":"2022-10-11T15:20:56","slug":"the-stupid-war-on-russian-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-stupid-war-on-russian-literature\/","title":{"rendered":"The Stupid War On Russian Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-stupid-war-on-russian-literature%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1683446&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cYes,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/culture\/2022\/10\/06\/yes-the-russian-literary-canon-is-tainted-by-imperialism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">says<\/a> the latest edition of The Economist, \u201cthe Russian literary canon is tainted by imperialism.\u201d Putin\u2019s invasion of Ukraine has called into question \u201cnot just the value of reading\u201d Russian classics, says the magazine, \u201cbut also the morality.\u201d As it happens, I\u2019m a big fan of Russian literature and classical music. For me, the novels of Dostoevsky are still imminently readable \u2014 which is more than I can say for The Economist.<\/p>\n<p>In The Times Literary Supplement, Oksana Zabuzhko, a Ukrainian writer, \u201cargued powerfully,\u201d The Economist points out, that Western readers of major Russian authors have ignored their \u201cimperialist attitudes and indulged their drastic moral relativism and sympathy for criminals.\u201d These books, the author claims, are \u201cthe camouflage net\u201d for Russian tanks in Ukraine. <\/p>\n<p>This is\u00a0<em>insanity<\/em>. Soon after Putin\u2019s invasion, symphonies and opera houses began shutting down Russian artists and performances. Carnegie Hall <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classicfm.com\/artists\/valery-gergiev\/russian-conductor-putin-carnegie-hall\/\">removed<\/a> Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, and Metropolitan Opera <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/deceptivecadence\/2022\/03\/03\/1084177539\/anna-netrebko-metropolitan-opera-russia-putin-ukraine\">dropped<\/a> opera singer Anna Netrebko. The Polish National Opera <a href=\"https:\/\/operawire.com\/polish-national-opera-cancels-boris-godunov\/#:~:text=The%20Polish%20National%20Opera%20has,unable%20to%20present%20the%20production.\">canceled<\/a> performances of Mussorgsky\u2019s \u201cBoris Godunov,\u201d and the Cardiff Philharmonic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/uk-wales-60684374#:~:text=A%20Welsh%20orchestra%20has%20dropped,after%20Russia&#039;s%20invasion%20of%20Ukraine.\">dropped<\/a> Tchaikovsky\u2019s \u201c1812 Overture\u201d over its bellicosity. The Russification of Ukraine was most intense under Soviet rule, so why allow anyone to play Prokofiev or Shostakovich? Next thing you know Rimsky-Korsakov\u2019s \u201cScheherazade\u201d will be banned for normalizing cultural appropriation.<\/p>\n<p>The attack on Russian writers is worse. I will admit to knowing little about the \u201cimperialist bent\u201d of the renowned poet and novelist Pushkin, who apparently wrote verse trumpeting Russia\u2019s \u201cmight\u201d in the 1830s. Though a critic of the tsars and champion of the downtrodden, a Ukrainian critic points out, the poem \u201cTo the Slanderers of Russia\u201d is a broadside against the French-backed Polish uprising against the tsar in 1830. Pushkin was apparently still sore about Napoleon\u2019s invasion of Russia in 1812. (Napoleon promised the Poles, and many other \u201ccolonized\u201d ethnic minorities in Europe, self-determination. Colonizer or liberator?)<\/p>\n<p>Leo Tolstoy, notes The Economist, is guilty, as well, for neglecting \u201cthe perspectives of the colonised peoples of eastern Europe.\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.collinsdictionary.com\/us\/dictionary\/english\/presentism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Presentism<\/a> will end up making virtually anything written before 2000 problematic.) Though, in the end, the novelist \u201crepudiates militarism and violence\u201d so he\u2019s OK. One can\u2019t say the same for Dostoevsky, the magazine alleges, whose novels are \u201claced with colonialist ideas\u201d that are expressed \u201cin spiritual rather than militaristic terms\u201d:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>In the past readers have seen Dostoyevsky as a sublime guide to the darkest, most secret reaches of the human heart. Today he and other Russian writers can instead seem to point the way to the front in Donbas.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Accusing Dostoevsky of empowering Putin is quite the charge. What are these \u201cegregious examples\u201d of Dostoevsky\u2019s Russian \u201cchauvinism\u201d and colonialist mindset that directly led to the invasion of Ukraine? \u00a0We are offered two. The first, an essay entry in his final book, \u201cDiary of a Writer,\u201d in which Dostoevsky cheers on the Russian expansion into Asia \u2014 an imperialist race that nearly every major European power participated in.<\/p>\n<p>The second is a remark by Prince Myshkin \u2014 the protagonist in his novel \u201cThe Idiot\u201d \u2014 in which he refers to Catholicism as \u201cunchristian.\u201d Myshkin, for those of you who haven\u2019t read the chaotic novel, is Dostoevsky\u2019s sanctified version of a Russian Orthodox Christian man, a figure so chaste and uncomplicated that he holds no ill toward anyone \u2014 not even those who plot against him. This innocence leads others to believe he is a simpleton. \u201cThe Idiot\u201d certainly idealizes traditional Russian theology and culture. Dostoevsky believed, as Barack Obama might say, in Russian exceptionalism. He also believed in pan-Slavism. The author wrote most of the book while living in Western Europe, an experience he did not enjoy.\u00a0But if you believe Myshkin is a proxy for bigotry and war and \u201ccolonialism,\u201d or that the writing embraces anything resembling \u201cmoral relativism,\u201d you\u2019ve drastically missed the point.*<\/p>\n<p>Ukrainians, incidentally, many of whom still lionize and write <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Our_father_is_Bandera,_Ukraine_is_our_mother!\">patriotic songs<\/a> about Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera or build statues of Simon Petliurano, who led pogroms <a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldjewishcongress.org\/en\/news\/world-jewish-congress-denounces-disgraceful-and-deplorable-ukrainian-monument-honoring-anti-semitic-nationalist-leader-10-2-2017\">against Jews<\/a> in the early 20th century, should probably be careful arguing that Dostoevsky\u2019s \u201clong-standing hostility to Catholics and Jews\u201d puts him in league with Putin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Idiot,\u201d like many other books of the 18th and 19th centuries, was serialized in newspapers and sometimes touches on contemporary, now-esoteric political debates. There is no evidence that the writer, who was subjected to a <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/on-the-terrifying-hoax-execution-that-haunted-dostoevskys-writing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">mock execution<\/a>, would have supported the authoritarian quashing of political dissent. Anti-Western sentiment was certainly part of Dostoevsky\u2019s position. He was a conservative and a reactionary, and like many contemporary writers in Europe, he grappled with the meaning of national identity. Putting the writer at the head of a column of tanks for exploring those issues in the 1870s is a transparently risible attempt to cancel Russian culture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose who detest Mr Putin\u2019s invasion of Ukraine need not throw away their copies of the Russian classics,\u201d allows The Economist. Instead, \u201creaders might revisit them with more critical eyes and a renewed sensitivity to imperialist sentiments.\u201d No, thank you. One might simply read great novels as if they were written in their own time and place. It\u2019s not that there weren\u2019t odious ideas in the novels of the 19th century. But Dostoevsky never peddled immorality or \u201cfascistic\u201d notions or violence. There is no need to retcon Russian literature \u2014 or music or art \u2014 to comport with your contemporary political needs.<\/p>\n<p><em>*I went back and read the section in \u201cThe Idiot\u201d in which Myshkin attacks the rituals and alleged greed of the Roman Church. It\u2019s all very The Great Schism-y. Mostly, though, Myshkin blames Catholics for the deterioration of faith in Europe, joking that if a Russian converts to Catholicism he is \u201csure to become a Jesuit at once, and a rabid one into the bargain.\u201d <em>Myshkin<\/em><\/em> <em>(wrongly) blames Rome for the rise of socialism, but (rightly) notes that the ideology \u201cseeks to replace in itself the moral power of religion, in order to appease the spiritual thirst of parched humanity and save it; not by Christ, but by force.\u201d Russia, it turns out, would fall to socialist faith a few years <a href=\"https:\/\/www.econlib.org\/library\/Columns\/y2015\/Samuelsfascism.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">before<\/a> Italy.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books\u2014the most recent, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Eurotrash-America-Reject-Failed-Continent\/dp\/0063066017\/\">Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent<\/a>. His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post, and numerous other publications. Follow him on Twitter, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davidharsanyi\/\">@davidharsanyi<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cYes,\u201d says the latest edition of The Economist, \u201cthe Russian literary canon is tainted by imperialism.\u201d Putin\u2019s invasion of Ukraine has called into question \u201cnot just the value of reading\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":831,"featured_media":1683448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1683446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1683446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/831"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1683446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1683446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1683448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1683446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1683446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1683446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}