5 November 2024
by Lev Shlosberg
Source: Facebook
There is nothing stupider than to brand a representative of Russian culture as a ‘foreign agent’. The Ministry of (In)Justice has set its sights on Aleksandr Arkhangelsky: writer, literary scholar, filmmaker, graduate in Russian language and literature, postgraduate of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute Faculty, and doctor of philosophy. A man of Russian culture.
This is not the first time the authorities have added cultural figures to the register of ‘foreign agents’, but for some strange reason, those who demand and orchestrate this immorality in the eyes of the public neither feel nor comprehend the obvious dissonance in their actions. My explanation: these people know nothing about Russian culture. In their eyes, culture itself is a foreign agent, a hidden threat to their grip on power; you cannot have culture without freedom.
Aleksandr Arkhangelsky is an agent of Russian literature. His work has been published by the newspapers: Vremya MN, Literaturnaya gazeta, Nezavisimaya gazeta, Segodnya; the journals: Voprosy literatury, Druzhba narodov, Znamya, Iskusstvo kino, Literaturnaya obozrenie, Novoe vremya, Novy mir, Strana i Mir (Munich) and L’Oell (Paris). Are these all to be labelled ‘foreign agents’?
Arkhangelsky has received awards from: the journals Literaturnoe obozrenie (1984), Literaturnaya gazeta (1990); Znamya (1996), Novy mir (1996), and Druzhba narodov (1997). All are well-known ‘thick journals’ of Russian literature. Are they ‘foreign agents’?
Arkhangelsky has authored, co-authored and directed films: Factories of Memory: Libraries of the World (2004-2010), The Department (2010), Heat (2011), The Intellectual: Vissarion Belinsky (2011), The Outlaw: Aleksandr Herzen (2012), The idealist: Vladimir Korolenko (2015), The Museum Event (2016), Teodor the Naysayer (2020), The Scar (2021) and Hunger (2022). Is all Russian history down to ‘foreign agents’?
Arkhangelsky’s book on Tsar Aleksandr I was translated into French (Fayard, 2000) and Chinese (Vostok, 2012). Let me repeat that: French and Chinese. Granted, unlike the times of Pushkin and Tolstoy, France has now become a hostile country. But into Chinese?! Was Comrade Xi made aware of this? Did he consent to such a humiliation?
Russian culture is the work of ‘foreign agents’. Russian publishing is the work of ‘foreign agents’. Russian history is the work of ‘foreign agents’. It follows that all of Russia will become a ‘foreign agent’.
A war waged on culture by those in power will, in any country, sooner or later result in the moral and political downfall of those authorities. Sadly, it sometimes happens that people prefer to sacrifice cultural life in exchange for their country’s freedom from the trials and tribulations of being free. Russia has centuries’ worth of examples of this: eternal stains on the conscience of the people.
But a person of culture always goes against the grain: against madness, incivility, lies, hypocrisy, inhumanity, and illiteracy. Essentially, they go against unculture. This is the path Aleksandr Arkhangelsky has chosen – against the grain – and history will prove him right.
May he never lack strength, patience, and love towards people.
Translated by Oscar Seecharan
