Moscow News
www.mnweekly.ru
March 19, 2009
Stalin book spat stirs controversy
By Anna Arutunyan
Are books about Stalin being banned in Russia? When British historian Orlando Figes claimed that the political climate was behind a Moscow publisher's decision to cancel the translation of his book, "The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia," some of the British media pounced on a familiar Cold War stereotype. But in doing so, they missed a more complicated story of how ideology, book publishing - and sometimes downright pressure - actually function in Russia.
"There were these crazy articles - the Kremlin is banning history... but this is a completely different story," said Irina Flige, director of Memorial, the historical society that documents Stalinist repression and was raided by prosecutors late last year. "My conviction is that the delay of the book was purely technical. This does not negate the background. But the book had nothing to do with it - there's no ban on this book."
Figes insisted he had not complained of any outright ban, merely that the book's fate had been influenced by the political climate.
"I never said that there is a Kremlin influence," he said by telephone on Thursday. "Basically, though I'm happy to accept the explanation of the publisher, nonetheless I feel that the political climate is likely to influence commercial decisions, so that books that are more politically risky are more likely to be dropped than books that are not. But accusing the Kremlin directly would be totally absurd."
According to Flige and Moscow publishers Atticus, Figes' book was delayed for technical reasons. Sergei Parkhomenko, a former editor at Atticus who signed up Figes, left the publishers last year. The new editor, Olga Morozova, judged the translation too demanding a task to undertake during a tough economic period.
‘The Whisperers' recreates what life was like for Russians living in the 1930s - from the cramped communal apartments with one family to a room, to the culture of silence and doublethink that pervaded personal relationships under these conditions,
Meanwhile, Parkhomenko said that Korpus, the publisher he launched after leaving Atticus last year, plans to go ahead with translating "The Whisperers."
Parkhomenko, who hosts a talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio that is stridently critical of the Kremlin, said that while the Kremlin is spinning an apologist perspective of Stalin - something he said that had become part of the official Russian doctrine in the last year - that doesn't mean that literature on Stalin is being suppressed.
Atticus' decision, he said, "is not a story of political repression. It's a story of foolishness and cowardice on the part of the publisher, who does not believe that a... difficult and important book can and should be published."
As a publisher, Parkhomenko said he had faced "politically motivated" decisions to shelve the publication of books. "Personally, I've encountered this twice. I was told that I can publish the books, but that no one will sell them."
If anyone knows about trouble with the Russian law, it's Falanster, the cult bookshop that publishes modern-day samizdat. The shop was closed for months in 2005 an arson attack. Then, in 2007, police raided the bookshop, confiscating books that it deemed pornographic, and demanding that it stop selling literature that is "banned by the Federal Security Service." Owner Boris Kupriyanov was threatened with a criminal case, but was never charged.
"On one level, everything is political," Kupriyanov said. "But most likely, it was a desire of low-level officials to be holier than the Pope. They tried to control us, tried to tell us what we can and cannot sell. They singled out one publisher, Ultrakultura [which sometimes publishes political literature on the fringe]. But I don't think there is any conspiracy against Falanster."
Memorial's work was directly curtailed by state authorities in December, when masked men from the Prosecutor General's Office confiscated databases with hundreds of records and family archives. Figes, who worked closely with Memorial on his book, was given crucial access to those records, and now he fears much may be lost for him as well as for other writers and historians.
"We did not raid ourselves, so we cannot say what the real motives can be," said Flige. "If they raided us in December, took materials, and have not returned them, than the only conclusion we can draw is that they took exactly what they wanted to take. What they took were databases of stories on the Soviet terror. Why they wanted this - that's a different question. That would be speculation."
Figes says that four other British historians have said their books have been cancelled. But Russian publishers, booksellers, and historians said they doubted that books on Stalin are being deliberately targeted.
Igor Shumeiko, a historian who has published several books on World War II, said that the official doctrine has other ways of manifesting itself besides outright bans. "It's one thing to promote what is preferable," he said, citing the textbooks that tend to portray Stalin in a more positive light. "It's quite another to actually suppress literature."
Some publishers have scrutinised controversial passages in his books, such as his favorable treatment of Winston Churchill, said Shumeiko. Others say there is already lots of literature dealing with the Stalin era.
"The Yeltsin Foundation is publishing everything on the Stalin era that has come out in the last 10 years," said Kupriyanov. "I don't see how politics could be involved in these decisions."
Olga Morozova, the current editor at Atticus, agreed. "It's not only that the market is saturated with books on Stalinism. It's that people are tired of this," she said. "And now Figes is making us look like we're Stalinists, which we're not."
Morozova came to work for Atticus last autumn, and had to cancel many of the contracts signed by Parkhomenko. She decided not to publish Figes because she did not expect it to say anything new, she said.
She denied ever encountering political pressure in her work. "I'm generally apolitical. I'm not interested in politicians. They're all swine."
Flige, of Memorial, said the real battle is to prevent the history of Stalin's repressions becoming marginalised as Russia devotes more attention to celebrating victory in World War II.
"The field of historic memory is a front line," Flige said. "The Russian government is constructing a positive history that has no room for considering the terror, but has room for listing the victories and achievements. We can't say that the Terror is being silenced. But on the other hand, we won the war, Thus, the Terror is being justified, in their understanding."
The problems start when reality is simplified to fit a Cold War cliche, she said. "Many journalists said, just tell me - were you raided? What can I say? Yes, we were raided. Then they don't want to hear anything else."