I'm not sure if I see how boycotting a free version of a series based on a long dead author's public domain work makes a difference one way or another.
Thanks for trying to whitewash him, but no, we Russians know him very well.
Sterilization of anti-invasion people is one of the mildest things he suggests. He’s also a huge homophobe standing against “Western homosexual values”.
He’s been an almost weekly speaker on Russia 1 channel since 2000’s. His views were on clear display for years.
He’s one of the most hawkish anti-Ukrainian and ultraconservative Russian filmmakers save for Mikhalkov.
In exchange he’s been given tons of state awards and kept as a head of largest filmmaking company (Mosfilm). Also budgets for productions like this.
He had a couple okay-ish films during perestroika (Courier) but afterwards his sole job is a person shouting on state TV how he hates Western gays and Ukrainians.
Please assume good faith; your arguments will carry more weight. I googled the guy, and that came up which clearly countered the invective against him here.
I will repeat comment you responded to: Series director Shakhnazarov is one of the ultra pro-war and pro-Putin celebrities. He’s almost daily on Russian TV spewing hatred against Ukrainians, Americans, minorities. Be careful. It’s tempting to say “not all Germans”, but this case is clear-cut.
Your link is not showing ANYTHING to cancel out the above or undo the damage. He is still spewing hatred. There is literally no goalposts movement, except yours.
Lets quote Shakhnazarov in state TV saying approvingly: "The opponents of the letter Z must understand that if they are counting on mercy, no, there will be no mercy for them. [...] There will be concentration camps, re-education, sterilisation of those who oppose the letter Z". This is him saying what should happen.
The implications of that article are pretty dangerous.
It's one tiny step removed from plain claiming some (Russian) authors should be canceled or not read because there's some folklore surrounding their importance for the construction of the national identity, and/or they defended some nationalistic ideals, and/or school children are taught silly nonsense about them.
Not many classic authors in any language would survive that filter.
Why, if we were to bar pieces of culture because school children are taught silliness about them, not much of the culture of the English-speaking world would survive!
I get that the current trend is to abhor anything Russian -- and also, that the current situation has not made it easy to sympathize with Russian-ness -- but really... this kind of articles is positively Orwellian.
Nothing good can come from ignoring/banning/canceling classic authors.
I see your point and I agree with most that you wrote. I don't believe the article I linked to is dangerous, though. It clarified many things for me (not to mention putting Brodsky in a new context, personally I found it quite shocking).
I remember watching the Chinese movie Hero (2002), sponsored by the state. The main premise of this beautiful movie is that dictatorship has its value that must be respected, and only people with deeper insight can understand it. Banning such works serves no purpose, but it's important for people to learn to spot manipulation and propaganda.
I sure hope they never ban "Hero", it's one of my favorite wuxia movies! I don't see it as propaganda at all, regardless of the ambiguous interpretation of its ending.
As far as I can see it has many people from Hong Kong in its cast -- including the awesome Maggie Cheung -- and the production company was from Hong Kong. Regardless, I don't consider "sponsored by the state" to be a naughty word, nor do I consider "fully privately sponsored" to be a badge of honor.
** Spoiler alert - don't read further but watch the movie instead! **
The whole movie is about the assassination attempt (OK, there is love and beauty and music, but the main plot is that). The main protagonist of the movie doesn't kill the emperor though as he understood what another character meant: that the emperor must not die, as the peace is possible only by uniting various ethnic groups by him.
On the surface, this kind of reasoning seems acceptable. In practice, though, forcing peace in this way just brings suffering and is a weak justification of imperialism. Look at the situation of Uighurs and Tibetans. A federation of states, in an integrated form like the USA or weaker like the EU seems to work much better in terms of benefits to their citizens than authoritarian empires in Chinese or Russian style.
I think that's reading too much into the movie. It's not an apologia of modern day China, it's a wuxia fable about imperial China, and the message of unity is not a bad one.
> A federation of states, in an integrated form like the USA or weaker like the EU seems to work much better in terms of benefits to their citizens than authoritarian empires in Chinese or Russian style.
That's a lot of baggage to unload into a wuxia movie. It's a movie, a folklore fable more in the style of a Chinese Rashomon (to which it's been compared) than a way to introduce political discourse. I wouldn't overanalyze it, just like I don't watch samurai movies to criticize them because Japanese feudal society wasn't democratic.
I can guarantee you "Hero" is not communist propaganda. I thought we were past this level of paranoia with the Cold War over.
Well, I had to look at the WP page just to check if I'm imagining things and nobody else thought about this (mind you, I'm a great fan of wuxia, and Hero is one of the best movies I've ever seen, with each minute being extremely satisfying on all levels). It turns out there are others[0]:
> Nevertheless, there were several film critics who felt the film had advocated autocracy and reacted with discomfort. J. Hoberman of The Village Voice deemed it to have a "cartoon ideology" and justification for ruthless leadership comparable to Triumph of the Will. Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post wrote an otherwise positive review but concluded: "The movie, spectacular as it is, in the end confronts what must be called the tyrant's creed, and declares itself in agreement with the tyrant."
It is fascist to decide to not watch movies made by fascists? People are free to not read feminists books and most of them don't precisely because of who authors are. But, why is willingness to go out of your way for art made by fascist always the mandatory test? (And yes the director counts in that category.)
Western people did not exactly read arab poets while ISIS was expanding their territory either. Also, people in west were never too quick to read Ukrainian, Polish, Czech or whatever literature.
My point here is: if art of other countries is so important for nations being together, why is the Russian one being constantly treated as more important then everyone else? Why not urging us to read Finnish, French, German, Polish, Slovak and Ukrainian? Or literature from Belarus for that matter?
Seriously, why did emphasis on Russian art went UP after the latest invasion?
Russian literature has been a mainstay among western audiences for the last hundred years. Works like Punishment and Crime, War and Peace, Anna Karenina are widely known across the world.
This is just tradition, personally I don't believe Russian writers of 18/19 centuries were better or worse than their counterparts living in Eastern Europe, for example. It is indisputable Russia produced some great writers and poets, such as Anna Akhmatova (but especially for poetry 70% is lost in translation). The reason that Tolstoi and Dostoyevski got famous is largely geopolitical; what we are doing now is just a part of tradition. I remember I relatively enjoyed reading Crime and Punishment, but when I started to read Brothers Karamazov, I started to have a feeling there are so many better ways to spend my life than reading these two bricks and this feeling only increased with time. YMMV.
Future purchase decisions are already affected by the sanctions. Shops will already not be able to restock. So consumers not buying the current stock is moot.
People are asked to bear sacrifices to hurt the Russian nation through all out sanctions, and you are also asking them to have empathy and identify with Russian characters through their Russian life.
Some people compartmentalize enough to be able to do both, but that's a tall order.
Hurting the Russian nation state through financial and technological sanctions is one thing. Vilifying Russian culture or the Russian people is more slanted towards fascism--the same thing the Russian government is doing in Ukraine towards Ukrainians.
What you propose is also pretty ironic seeing that the majority of civilian casualties and destroyed cities in Ukraine are from areas that have majority of Russian speakers. Not really fair towards those people I suppose :).
> What you propose is also pretty ironic seeing that the majority of civilian casualties and destroyed cities in Ukraine are from areas that have majority of Russian speakers.
This is the terrible irony of this war! I've had many colleagues in eastern cities like Kharkov. They would all identify as Russians. It wasn't a big deal, ever - they were Russians living in Ukraine, speaking Russian just like everyone else, of course knowing some Ukrainian but not caring about that much. And most of them would welcome joining Russia just like many people in Crimea did.
But a few days or weeks after the war they realize they are just insignificant pawns in the hands of cruel people: their own kind were shelling them, killing their families and so on. They realized this way too late, it's a tragic situation. (Fortunately most of my colleagues managed to escape, but not everybody was able to, especially old people.)
There's a huge gap between villifying Russian culture and not wanting to watch Russian movies in the current climate. You're pushing it to an extreme that was not in the discussion.
Also, do you really draw a line between hurting "Russian nation state" and the actual Russian people's everyday life ?
I can't imagine the current sanction has no effect on the regular population's everyday life nor near-future prospects, and it's a choice we're making as we have no other lever to pull. I understand the trade-off and am not comfortable sugar-coating it in "nation state" denomination.
Of course the sanctions are hitting the pockets of the citizens of Russia, but that was not the point I was making.
I was saying that there are a lot of Russians not living in Russia, some of whom are currently the victims of the current war that the government of Russia started. So isolating these people, making them double victims is to me really dumb.
Culturally isolating Russians in Russia is also a dumb move as this is a goal of Putin as well.
I can't stop you from actively helping Putin, I can only point out that what you are doing is counter productive, if what you are doing is done out of ignorance :).
> the same thing the Russian government is doing in Ukraine towards Ukrainians.
It is so fun to see how this whole thing was turned upside down.
Just a small advice: when researching this topic and googling for information, consider setting a time limit on before the conflict, before propaganda machines had been turned on at full power.
It is just very insightful to see what people had to say on some matter, before it became politically significant.
Same with sanctions, or any other form of violence (violence, in the most abstract sense). The idea is to positively influence by exerting pressure. That's the ideal, anyway.
It can become difficult to tell whether violence is motivated by noble intentions, or vengeance and disdain. Or, whether it's done by conscious choice, or via group-think.
Any strategy of war must be effective. Russia maintains a positive trade balance, largely by exporting commodities, and most of the world remains happy to buy them. On 1st January, a Euro would buy you 85 rubles, today, you'd get 62.
It might feel like the right thing to do. It might even be the right thing to do, the West is wealthy and can afford to take certain haircuts as a moral stance.
It doesn't appear to inflict any harm to the target, however. Asia makes all the electronics and Russia has its own heavy industry, what can we deny them, Facebook? No they have their own one of those as well.
The harm it does to our side is obvious, and the polite thing is always to ignore it, but that's premised on the sanctions harming the enemy in some fashion, which, they don't.
Europe pays billions for gas daily basically sponsoring invasion.
It’s enough for Russian elite to flourish and pay people and companies reliant on state (most of Russia).
Putin’s bet is that sanctions will be lifted before tech embargo hits anyway.
Western politicians already drag their feet on arming Ukraine. Just mentioning unrest and refugee influx from North Africa due to hunger is enough. They will pressure Ukraine to surrender and gradually lift sanctions.
You don’t pay for watching propaganda, yet it influences.
Some of the rus authors have had a significant role in shaping the current rus culture and imperialism. The same that thinks it’s alright to murder, loot, rape and pillage.
> Some of the rus authors have had a significant role in shaping the current rus culture and imperialism.
I don't believe that you have any first-hand knowledge of Russian culture or literature. In fact, this seems more like ignorant western propaganda talking points.
I had to chew through quite a few of those rus books in school, read Dostoyevsky again later. Quite enjoyed Bulgakov. But still most of the big names convey rus greatness and how suffering for the czar is honorable.
No they don't. That's like the opposite of Russian literature (at least that which had survived through the ages)
I'd get if this was a difference in interpretation, but I don't understand how can you even make such a claim, when it is a historic fact that most of the "big names" had been in confrontation with czars, had problems with overcoming censorship or were altogether considered crimanals and were exiles.
Either you are confusing the author's point of view with the point of some character (maybe due to cultural perspective and different traditions of virtue signaling), or maybe you don't get the Aesopian language, or worse.
Also, ad hominem is quite a valid argument, especially if it comes to subjective stuff. Especially if we have to consider cultural background.
> Some of the rus authors have had a significant role in shaping the current rus culture and imperialism. The same that thinks it’s alright to murder, loot, rape and pillage.
I don't know this guy; maybe he is a raging monster, no idea.
But in any case, he has virtually no influence in shaping “rus” (you know they switched to “russian” for over five centuries now, right?) culture and imperialism.
I understand that train of thought, but does this really apply to Anna Karenina?
It's a pre-soviet work from well over a century ago, from a time when the Russian state and society were very different from what exists today.
Well, I guess I should be used to the fact that western media often treats their readers as illiterate idiots without their own opinions, but still... Wow!
