By Serge Schmemann
Mr. Schmemann, a member of the editorial board, was the Times Moscow bureau chief in the 1980s and 1990s and is the author of “Echoes of a Native Land: Two Centuries of a Russian Village.”
It is hard to feel sorry for Russia today, when its army is savaging Ukraine. But for those of us who were in Moscow on that August morning in 1991 when a warm sun rose over people massed outside the “White House,” the embattled seat of the Russian government, and we realized that the tanks were not coming, that the coup had failed, that the Soviet yoke had been lifted, it’s also hard to escape a deep sense of grief that Russia has come full circle.
Russia’s potential is being set back by decades; the young, educated and creative are leaving; and the hard men are ascendant. Once again, Russia has become a pariah spreading lies and death.
Even back then, amid the elation of witnessing a victory over tyranny, those of us covering the demise of the Soviet empire knew that its dismemberment would not be quick or pretty. But it didn’t have to come to this.
In the weeks since Mr. Putin’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the reactions within Russia have been muffled. Many foreign correspondents, including those from The Times, have left Russia, and anyone who says anything publicly that contradicts the falsehoods put out by the Kremlin about the “special military operation” faces the threat of up to 15 years in prison for spreading “false information.” (The Soviet-style contraction for the invasion is “spetz operatsiya.”)
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I have been reaching out to friends who are still in Russia. Most were understandably cautious about talking to a journalist online, but their pain and sense of helplessness were tangible. One spoke of acute “shame and bitterness” among students and staff at a graduate school when word spread that the invasion had begun. “Nobody, nobody anticipated that he would ever do this,” my friend said. “We had ridiculed the reports in your newspaper that an invasion was imminent.”
Reports from Russia, and from some friends I’ve reached, speak to a widespread dismay and shame among younger, educated, urban Russians. Dismay because of the thousands who have been arrested in Russia for protesting the war; thousands of intellectuals and cultural figures have signed petitions against the invasion and carried out individual acts of courageous resistance. Novaya Gazeta, which was until this week the last functioning major opposition news outlet, wrote about a priest who dared to preach, “Brothers and sisters, this is a fratricidal war,” and was denounced to the police.
Novaya Gazeta itself announced that it was suspending publication after being warned against publishing an interview with President Volodomyr Zelensky of Ukraine. “There is no other choice,” said the editor, Dmitri Muratov, who was a co-winner of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize. One of Novaya Gazeta’s last issues showed ballet dancers silhouetted in front of a mushroom cloud with the caption, “A copy of Novaya, created in accordance with all the rules of Russia’s amended criminal code.” The allusion was clear: During the failed 1991 putsch, Russian state TV had looped “Swan Lake,” establishing a lasting meme.
The shame is because these were Russians who had refused to believe that Mr. Putin would actually invade Ukraine, even though they had pushed back against his oppressive rule. They had assumed, as many in the United States and Europe did, that however great Mr. Putin’s hatreds and grievances, however much he resented Ukraine’s independence, he was sufficiently rational not to do something so criminal and self-destructive. And then, as my friend told me, “he just threw over the chess board” and condemned Russia to another cycle of repression and isolation.
Like the large majority of Russians, the intelligentsia had supported Mr. Putin when he first came to power in 2000. He restored a measure of order to the chaos of the early post-Soviet years, and the economy rapidly expanded, and with it the wealth and standard of living for many people in Russia’s big cities.
Mr. Schmemann, a member of the editorial board, was the Times Moscow bureau chief in the 1980s and 1990s and is the author of “Echoes of a Native Land: Two Centuries of a Russian Village.”
It is hard to feel sorry for Russia today, when its army is savaging Ukraine. But for those of us who were in Moscow on that August morning in 1991 when a warm sun rose over people massed outside the “White House,” the embattled seat of the Russian government, and we realized that the tanks were not coming, that the coup had failed, that the Soviet yoke had been lifted, it’s also hard to escape a deep sense of grief that Russia has come full circle.
Russia’s potential is being set back by decades; the young, educated and creative are leaving; and the hard men are ascendant. Once again, Russia has become a pariah spreading lies and death.
Even back then, amid the elation of witnessing a victory over tyranny, those of us covering the demise of the Soviet empire knew that its dismemberment would not be quick or pretty. But it didn’t have to come to this.
In the weeks since Mr. Putin’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the reactions within Russia have been muffled. Many foreign correspondents, including those from The Times, have left Russia, and anyone who says anything publicly that contradicts the falsehoods put out by the Kremlin about the “special military operation” faces the threat of up to 15 years in prison for spreading “false information.” (The Soviet-style contraction for the invasion is “spetz operatsiya.”)
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Continue reading the main story
I have been reaching out to friends who are still in Russia. Most were understandably cautious about talking to a journalist online, but their pain and sense of helplessness were tangible. One spoke of acute “shame and bitterness” among students and staff at a graduate school when word spread that the invasion had begun. “Nobody, nobody anticipated that he would ever do this,” my friend said. “We had ridiculed the reports in your newspaper that an invasion was imminent.”
Reports from Russia, and from some friends I’ve reached, speak to a widespread dismay and shame among younger, educated, urban Russians. Dismay because of the thousands who have been arrested in Russia for protesting the war; thousands of intellectuals and cultural figures have signed petitions against the invasion and carried out individual acts of courageous resistance. Novaya Gazeta, which was until this week the last functioning major opposition news outlet, wrote about a priest who dared to preach, “Brothers and sisters, this is a fratricidal war,” and was denounced to the police.
Novaya Gazeta itself announced that it was suspending publication after being warned against publishing an interview with President Volodomyr Zelensky of Ukraine. “There is no other choice,” said the editor, Dmitri Muratov, who was a co-winner of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize. One of Novaya Gazeta’s last issues showed ballet dancers silhouetted in front of a mushroom cloud with the caption, “A copy of Novaya, created in accordance with all the rules of Russia’s amended criminal code.” The allusion was clear: During the failed 1991 putsch, Russian state TV had looped “Swan Lake,” establishing a lasting meme.
The shame is because these were Russians who had refused to believe that Mr. Putin would actually invade Ukraine, even though they had pushed back against his oppressive rule. They had assumed, as many in the United States and Europe did, that however great Mr. Putin’s hatreds and grievances, however much he resented Ukraine’s independence, he was sufficiently rational not to do something so criminal and self-destructive. And then, as my friend told me, “he just threw over the chess board” and condemned Russia to another cycle of repression and isolation.
Like the large majority of Russians, the intelligentsia had supported Mr. Putin when he first came to power in 2000. He restored a measure of order to the chaos of the early post-Soviet years, and the economy rapidly expanded, and with it the wealth and standard of living for many people in Russia’s big cities.
Opinion | Putin ‘Just Threw Over the Chess Board,’ and Russians Feel Shame and Dismay
Once again, Russia has become a pariah spreading lies and death.
www.nytimes.com