More Press for Russian Dissident

DISSIDENT AS CIRCUS ANIMAL

Here’s another article about Russian literary dissident Kirill Medvedev:

http://www.bookforum.com/review/11396

Kirill Medvedev, currently paraded on display in the U.S. by the elitist literary journal n+1, has become a kind of circus animal cynically used by representatives of American literary cronyism and publishing monopoly. (Kirill: You’re being used.) I fear the reasons for this go beyond the effete Harvard crowd seeking credibility by association with him. The motives may have to do with support for an aggressive U.S. foreign policy which sees contemporary Russia not as potential ally, but as an opponent. Shades of Encounter and Partisan Review. In this instance n+1 is following the pattern of its intellectual role models.

What’s indisputable is that Russian literary dissidents receive far more favorable treatment by the U.S. literary world than do American literary dissidents! Speak up about corruptions in the American literary system and you become swiftly blackballed.

Contradictions of the Literary World

Regarding this article about Russian poet Kirill Medvedev in the New York Times by Dwight Garner:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/books/its-no-good-by-kirill-medvedev.html?_r=0

I don’t get it. How can individuals like Dwight Garner and Keith Gessen (or Garth Risk Hallberg at The Millions) be strongly for cultural democracy, dissent, and freedom in Russia but not in the United States? If anything, they’re apologists for the literary status quo in this country; part of the monolith; supporters of the kind of crony capitalism a Kirill Medvedev would loathe.

Do these establishment journalists actually believe the political, economic, and cultural systems in both countries are dissimilar?

The difference is that the corruption, lies, and propaganda—the political and media games in the United States—are vastly more sophisticated. In Russia, the magician plying his trade is a crude amateur. The audience glimpses the rabbit in the hat before it appears. In the United States, the magicians are slick professionals.

If the principles of a Dwight Garner or Keith Gessen aren’t honest, aren’t transferable to our own shores, or their own field, then what are these highly placed apparatchiks up to?