The New Yorker Radio Hour - The Writer Dmitry Bykov on Putin’s Russia, the Land of the “Most Free Slaves”

Episode Date: July 15, 2022

Until very recently, Dmitry Bykov was a huge presence on the Russian literary scene. He is a novelist, a poet, a biographer, and a critic. He was a frequent presence on Echo of Moscow, the liberal radio station that was closed after the invasion of Ukraine, and his blunt political commentary made him an enemy of the regime. Bykov was teaching in the United States, at the Institute for European Studies at Cornell University, when the invasion of Ukraine began, and because of his forthright opposition to it, he may not be able to return home as long as Putin remains in power. Bykov calls Putin’s dictatorship “the final stage of Russian decline.” He blames not only Putin himself but the Russian people for the failure of democracy to take root. “In Russia they have a choice: to change the country—change themselves—or to keep Putin. They prefer to keep Putin,” Bykov tells David Remnick. “They’re really ready to die, but not to change their mind.” Most Russians, he continues, seem content “to make Putin responsible for everything, exclaiming, ‘We didn’t know, we couldn’t prevent him.’ ” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Until very recently, Dmitri Bekhov was a big presence on the Russian literary scene. He's a novelist, a poet, a biographer, and a critic. He's also one of the most outspoken and brilliant critics of Russian life and politics. He was a frequent presence on Echo of Moscow, the liberal radio station, that was finally shut down after the invasion of Ukraine. And as a commentator,

he pronounced scathing judgments, truly scathing on the nature and character of Vladimir Putin and the increasingly authoritarian regime he was building. And that never endeared him to those in power. In recent years, Beekov has been teaching on and off in the United States at Cornell University, but because of his forthright opposition to the war in Ukraine,

it's not at all clear that he'll ever return home. You were just in Ukraine. Tell me about the circumstances of the trip and what you saw. You can only feel it. You know, that's really a strange feeling of people who leave after death. They have decided for them on the 23rd of February, the dead dead, that everything is lost. And now they are quite free.

You know, that's like Japanese school of samurai. Imagine that you are dead and then act. You are living after death. Everything is finished. So feel yourself free and decisive. They are free and decisive. It's a kind of carnival after death. It's very merry and very horrifying.

The people who really decided to die for their country because they have no exit. They really feel the firm wall behind them. That there's no exit. Yeah, no exit and no place to run. Most of men before sea. state just are forbidden to leave the country. And by the way,

there were so long lines to get arms to join the so-called territorial defense. You never could imagine such an active population, especially to compare them with Russian population,

which prefers to spend its time in restaurants as if nothing happened. So all Ukraine is mobilized, and all the Ukraine is a kind of plasma, a kind of plasma which is ready for transformation in something unpredictable and maybe unimaginable. Tell me how you received the news that Russia under Putin was invading Ukraine.

Did it take you by surprise, or was this just an extension of what began in 2014? Well, you know, there is a really complicated problem because I was waiting for the war for a recent 20 years. I was predicting it in most of my books, and for example, one of my books is just called the Chronicle of the Near East War. I was ready for it, but I was sure that war between Russia and Ukraine would be delayed somehow, and I was waiting for it maybe next year. And now I came to continue my work in America after the winter vacations in the middle of February, just, by the way, just after my visit to Kiev. And then when I appeared here, a week later, the war began. It's hard to explain to people have never been there, but for the past decades,

people who were in your milieu, writers, journalists, and then also business people, and all kinds of people lived a kind of double life, to say the least, in Moscow, which is to say it was distinctly post-Soviet. Certain things existed that had never existed before. If I walked into a bookshop in Moscow or Petersburg or anywhere else, I could find books by Dimitri Bikoff and many, many others that would never have been there in the certainly late Soviet period. there were restaurants and there was a social life and a commercial life that had exploded.

But at the same time, at the same time, Putinism existed. How, describe for us, for an American, what that deceptive kind of semi-authoritarian, semi-democratic culture was before the war in Ukraine? Well, as for me, there was practically nothing. You know, the dictatorship was not evident in Russia. You couldn't feel it, for example. My books were not forbidden till March,

and you could buy them. But as for the opposition, they were always feeling the pressure. For example, I was banned as a teacher, as a lecturer. I couldn't, for example, teach in official university, only in private schools. I had right to

have a license to read lectures, for example, for adults, not for children, but only in my private lectatorium the straight speech. I wasn't allowed as an official teacher. Then, most of

Russian oppositioners were always checked for their financial documents and for their non-extremings. You know that extremism is a typical verdict for Russian oppositioners. The restaurants are open, so the life is normal. You see, one of my friends said they go to restaurants because they have no other business.

Everything except restaurants is forbidden. So maybe the dictatorship wasn't evident for foreign guests and for Russian Philistines. who waste their time in restaurants. There is no journalism. There is no normal business, only business which is allowed by the state, and so on. By the way, in one of Vasile Bekov's novels, the sign of drama, the sign of trauma,

he wrote, My only freedom is to smoke, because when I smoke, maybe, that's the sign of free will. So for everybody who could see it in things, It was quite clear that dictatorship is not only near, dictatorship is here. And we understood it.

You felt being a poet or being a writer, being too sensitive maybe to be happy, you were feeling the horrifying pressure which was strengthening all the time. Sometimes you could feel exceptionally being drunk. You could feel that this is your motherland or you're at home. But most of the time, I felt myself being at home in American bookstore.

You felt most at home being an American bookstore. Did you feel that way in the early 90s in the first flush of the post-Soviet period? How long did it take before it became evident that any glimmer of a democratic possibility in Russia was over? Well, you see, only Native Americans, only naive Americans could believe in democratic possibilities in 90s. I lived there, and I could see it. There were no democracy. There was a kind of new dictatorship, and so Yeltsin wasn't a democrat at all. He tried to be a democrat, but he was a typical party leader who always creates

extremal situations because he can act only in such situations, not in a peaceful world. As for me, I was quite sure even in the end of 80s, and I was writing about it in my young and non-experienced journalism. In the end of 80s, I was writing much that the destroying of the Soviet Union was an attempt to destroy a complicated system. You know, maybe the complication of system is the only measure of freedom.

The Soviet Union was not as simple and straight as it is described, for example, abroad or in the novels of Russian dissidents. There were many types of people and many types of communities in Soviet Russia. So 90s were the decade of degradation of the DC in all spheres of life, in culture, in science, in social sciences, and so on. There were some perspectives for the Soviet Union, like, for example, in a complicated chair's part and chess game. But all the figures were thrown away from the board. All the pieces were swept off the war.

Yes, yes, and that's the reason that the Soviet Union was not transformed. It was not transformed. It could be transformed, sure, but it wasn't. What meaning does Putin therefore have? Was Putin a logical continuation of the Yeltsin you described from the 90s? I must say that indeed Putin seems to be a real follower of Yeltsin. because Yeltsin's way of decision, of salvation of all problems, was to shoot, like in Chechnya, for example, and in 1993. You know, Soviet Minister of Defense, Paul Grachev, said that we can take Grozny for three hours.

And Russia was maybe was killing its soldiers there for 10 years. they were sure that they'll take Kiev for three days and now we understand that Ukraine appeared the giant swamp for Russian the giant swamp for Russian militaries and maybe this war is for years they can't take even Lysychansk

so I think that Putin is just the final stage of Russian decline because you know he is maybe the simplest, the most primitive figure in Russian power. He's so much smaller than the country, not only because he is small in general,

but because his figure is comically and finally little. Why do you say that for years, for years, much of the foreign press would talk about Putin as a master strategist, as far more experienced in the ways of power, in the Machiavellian sense than anyone else on the world stage. You're describing him as a pipsqueak.

Well, not pipsqueak, with really primitive figure. How do you mean? You see, it's very simple to be strategist in Russia. You know, when the patience of people is endless and when you can do practically everything with them, including, for example, public executions. Maybe there's the limit of their power.

you can do everything. And maybe this strategy is right. This strategy is not wrong because, you know, Vladimir Valodzim, the speaker of Russian parliament, said there would be no Russia without Putin. Maybe he's right, because in Russia, Putin is the only and the last version of Russian czar. After him, there would be no.

legal governor of Russia. He's the last person who can unite the country somehow. You know, in Russia, they have just very clear choice to change their country, to change themselves, or to keep Putin. They prefer to keep Putin. So they're really ready to die, but not to change their mind. I'm talking with the Russian writer Dmitri Bikov. in a moment. You seem to say it's impossible for anyone to imagine a Russia after Putin. Putin is a mortal figure. Can you imagine Russia politically after Putin? Well, as for me, I can imagine, first of all, federal Russia. Russia will sell government with regions which can govern themselves without directions of the center. But, you know, in Russia, most of people will,

pose you, they will say, you call to the destroy of the system. You want to destroy the system. Most of them will run away from the center. I am sure that the only way to keep Russia as the whole Russian as in Russia as integrity is to give all the rights to the government in places, for example, in cities, in republics, and so on, to make something like the United States of Russia. But in Russia, this idea is not popular because everybody believes only in centralization, only in central power and pyramid of power, in the so-called vertical.

I'm sure that after Putin, we wouldn't keep the vertical system of power. But most of people are sure that in paternalist or maternalist state like Russia, nobody can be free. Because when you take decisions like voting, for example, you are responsible. you are responsible for it. Most of Russian population wants to make Putin responsible for everything to say after him,

we didn't know, we couldn't prevent him. So this system, this runaway from responsibility, is very comfortable for life. Dimitri, you seem to hold the view that Americans mainly never permit themselves, which is to think of something as fixed and unchangeable. You seem to have the view that Russia is, eternally doomed to some form of totalitarianism or authoritarianism and to have a fate that will

never see it free. By the way, you know, it's not maybe a totalitarian power. It's some strange type of freedom. I'll explain. One of my students gave me, one of my students gave me a universal answer. I asked them in one of the groups teaching post-Soviet Russia. So how can you describe the system where nobody believes into territorial ideas, where everybody are joking about it and laughing at it, but nevertheless they're obedient?

Is it the country of slaves or the country of free people who are really free deep in their hearts? And one of my students said, in Russia, slavery and freedom are not mutually excluding. That's quite right. Maybe we're the country of most free slaves, most obedient and maybe sometimes most quiet. But deep in their heart, they never believe to the words they see. So it means that real, true fascism in Russia is not possible because fascism, is a type of intellectual discipline. But there is an imitative fascism. And most of the country is really serving Putin

without any deep belief in his abilities or ideas. I'm quite sure that in Russia there are maybe 5% who really hate Ukrainians for their idea of freedom, and maybe 5% are liberals, and 90% are just waiting for any unseen future, any unpredictable future. Dimitri, do you have family and friends in Ukraine? Well, I have family only in the U.S.C. And my ex-family, for example, my oldest son lives in Russia.

That's a strange thing, really. But for example, if during the night I'll come as a guest to most of the first of, of my Ukraine friends, they'll be happy to see me. I can't see it about my Russian friends. They wouldn't be happy. Not only because maybe they're Putinists. No, maybe sometimes

they are my followers still. But, you know, in Russia, people are not happy when they see a night guest. They're afraid of him. Generally, maybe I have in Ukraine about 100 or 200 close friends,

real intimate friends. And in Russia, maybe 10 people. Really? Only 10 friends in Russia? Only 10. You know, sometimes I feel a kind of nostalgia, and I want to call something, just to call and to talk. But most of those people are dead. You know, I'm old enough.

And some of them changed radically, and I can't recognize them. And only 10 of them would be glad to hear me. You know, you and I were emailing, and I asked you, do you think that you have seen Russia for the last time? Well, you know, it's a national sport in Russia to imagine that you see everything for the last time. When I left Russia half a year ago, I was quite sure that I'll be back, and even now I'm quite sure that I'll be back very soon. I am sure that we'll meet the new year, as usual, at Ajo Mosque, Echo of Moscow. which is banned now, and the same billing at Noverabad, will celebrate the new year. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. What you're saying is by the end of the year, not only will you be back in Moscow...

Because we'll have the radical change in August and the disappearance of Putin's regime in October. That's not only my prediction. I have a very professional predictor in Russia who agrees with me. Who is that? Just a girl from my class. And I have talks with my friends. Most of sensitive friends feel the nearing of catastrophe. And the catastrophe would be what? I can't say maybe it would be a typical Russian revolution, senseless, as Pushkin said, and cruel.

Putin's ideas are not very popular among his surroundings. I can't imagine how it happens. I only see the direction. Maybe I give 10 or 15% for peaceful development of this situation. But you know, every step is worse, for example, than yesterday. Dmitri Bikoff, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much.

Bye. Dimitri Bikoff, novelist, poet, biographer, journalist, and broadcaster. And now a man without a country. He's currently teaching in the U.S. at the Institute for European Studies. based at Cornell University. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, and this week we're saying our goodbyes

to producer Alex Barron. In his years on the program, Alex worked on stories about the treatment of terrorist suspects, a Confederate monument in Maryland, quite a few humor pieces, and he has a particular interest in the culture of the internet.

Like the time he reported on the game-stop craze. I am not an investment guy. I have never bought an individual share of stock in my life. But I found all of this really exciting. And so I spent $400 to buy a share of GameStop. Actually, 1.090222 shares. Needless to say, he sold it a loss. Alex keep making great stuff and stay away from the day trading. Best of luck to you always. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks for joining us. See you next time.

Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. This episode was produced by Emily Boutin, Avey Carrillo, Brita Green, Calilea, David Krasnow, Louis Mitchell, and Gauphin and Putabwele, with help from David Gable, Harrison Keith-Line, Alex Barish, Victor Gwan, and Meng Faye Chen. And we had original music this week by Alex Barron.

We had additional help this week from Michael May and James Napoli. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.