ABOUT THE BOOK: David Satter arrived in the SOVIET UNION IN JUNE, 1976
as the correspondent of the Financial Times of London and entered a
country that was a giant theater of the absurd. After 1982, he was
banned from the SOVIET UNION BUT ALLOWED BACK IN 1990, and finally
expelled in 2013 on the grounds that the secret police regarded his
presence as “undesirable.” From 1976 to the present, he saw four
different RUSSIAS, which differed from each OTHER RADICALLY WHILE
REMAINING ESSENTIALLY THE SAME. From 1976 to 1982, the SOVIET UNION
WAS AT THE HEIGHT OF ITS WORLD POWER AND ITS PEOPLE WERE IN THRALL TO
AN ABSURD IDEOLOGY. With the advent of Gorbachev’s perestroika, the
SOVIET POPULATION WAS LIBERATED FROM THE IDEOLOGY AND THE STATE
HURTLED TO ITS INEVITABLE COLLAPSE. When independent RUSSIA EMERGED
FROM THE WRECKAGE, the failure to replace the missing ideology with
genuine moral values led to RUSSIA’s complete criminalization. The
articles in this unique collection are a chronicle of Russia from the
day David Satter arrived in the Soviet Union until the present.
Emigres from the states of the former Soviet Union often despair of
their inability to convey the true character of their experiences to
the West. Penetrating the veil of Russian mystification requires
effort and the ability to understand that seeing is not always
believing. The Russians have created an entire false world for our
benefit. This collection reflects David Satter’s 40-year attempt to
see them as they are.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER: David Satter is the author of five books on Russia,
including “Never Speak to Strangers and Other Writing from Russia
and the Soviet Union,” which was released in April, 2020 by
ibidem-Verlag/Columbia University Press. A former Moscow correspondent
of the Financial Times of London (1976-82), he has followed Russian
events for more than four decades. In September, 2013, he was
accredited as a Radio Liberty correspondent in Moscow. Three months
later, he was expelled from Russia becoming the first U.S.
correspondent to be barred from Russia since the Cold War.
David Satter is affiliated with the Hudson Institute and Johns Hopkins
University. His other books are The Less You Know, the Better You
Sleep: Russia’s Road to Terror and Dictatorship under Yeltsin and
Putin, which was published in 2016. His first book, Age of Delirium:
the Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union, was published in 1996. A
film based on the book, “Age of Delirium,” won the 2013 Van Gogh
Grand Jury Prize at the Amsterdam Film Festival. In addition, David
Satter has written Darkness at Dawn: the Rise of the Russian Criminal
State (2003) and It Was a Long Time Ago and It Never Happened Anyway:
Russia and the Communist Past (2011). His books have been translated
into eight languages.
David Satter is a frequent commentator on Russian affairs. He writes
on Russia for the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. His
articles and op-ed pieces have also appeared in the National Review,
CNN.com, The Daily Beast, National Review Online, and other
publications. He is also regularly interviewed in both Russian and
English by Radio Liberty, the Voice of America and the BBC.
theater
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04/06/2020 Last update