Monday 04 November 2024
I would never teach Elena Kostyuchenko’s (2023) I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country not because it’s a poorly written book. The book is one of the best nonfiction/journalism books I have come across. I refuse to teach it because it’s too well written. The writing is relentless and merciless; its matter-of-factness exposes the daily injustices—not only the political but also the various social, economic, and moral affronts—that Vladimir Putin brutalizes and humiliates the Russian people with. Kostyuchenko leaves out no Russian community from her movingly novelistic-like reporting because Putin spares no Russian group to marginalize and degrade. Children, special needs patients, drug addicts, prostitutes… anyone whom Putin can exploit and gain some kind of an advantage… these groups have found an advocate in Kostyuchenko.
Certainly, previous Russian journalists—for example, the late Anna Politkovskaya—have written about the neglected and forgotten social and economic demographics in Russian society, thereby providing an important corrective in the current Russian reporting and voicing their silenced but painful everyday living realities: hopelessness, violence, and on and on.
However, unlike her mentor Politkovskaya who wrote short but heartbreaking vignettes about similar groups Kostyuchenko also writes about, Kostyuchenko pens long narratives. She definitely finds inspiration in the grand narrative style of a Dostoevsky or Tolstoy—whether she is aware of this influence or not— in the sense that the reader truly gets to understand the psychological and existential crises ordinary Russians quietly and almost invisibly struggle with. Not only do these Russian souls suffer from spiritual sickness caused by the indignities Putin indifferently has unleashed upon them but these Russian souls also endure physical ailments. The glitter of gold encrusted Kremlin furnishings and wall moldings and the fiery political rhetoric of Putin do not shine upon or warm these Russians whom Kostyuchenko stands by with in her journalism. Her investigative reporting exposes harsh but needed light that cuts through the false and cosmetic façade that Putin dons to convince his supporters that all is right in Russia. Kostyuchenko goes into both the big cities and sleepy towns to uncover the rot that hides beneath Putin’s Russia.
And this rot festering behind Putin’s mask is noxious. I Love Russia is a book that a reader cannot read through in one sitting. Reader, beware! You will need weeks—if not months—to get through the experience of reading Kostyuchenko’s book. I do not exaggerate. I needed to take reading-breaks from it. And I do not mean “twenty-minute” breathers. “Twenty-hour” step-aways are more precise. I Love Russia is that kind of book.
“How dare you feel badly,” Kostyuchenko’s voice I hear in my mind seems to be saying to me. “Go on, read it. Finish the book!” she seems to guilt-trip me. Her tone isn’t one that shames you for your self-perceived apathy or inaction. By reading her book, you aren’t insensitive or unmoved because you are making a stand against Putin by reading this book. The state of Russian affairs is well-known by this point in time; you may even say Kostyuchenko offers nothing new.
On the other hand, what Kostyuchenko does differently is not only does she make you see the horrors but makes you feel them. As her mentor Anna Politkovskaya wrote and said many times (Politkovskaya wrote the way she did so that you do not sink into that stinking and sticky swamp of racism and indifference), Kostyuchenko also cares so that you, too, do not become a swamp creature and become like him, Putin. Kostyuchenko is an excellent student of Politkovskaya’s. What Politkovskaya had done in short but moving literary vignettes with Russians stomaching and Chechens suffering under Putin’s terrorism, Kostyuchenko does in long and intimate portraits.
I took those “twenty-hour” walk aways from I Love Russia, but I persevered. I didn’t give up by shelving the book—or, in case, deleting the audio file; I listened rather than read the book. I completed the book but felt overwhelmed. Indeed, reading certain books can be a traumatic experience. If I felt guilt-ridden and distressed by a book, how would a classroom filled with young people feel?
As I have written about in a previous blog series (“Professor, Why Don’t We Read…?”), I can no longer teach certain books and movies because of their unsettling, upsetting content. I have seen enough students gasp, cry, and even hold hands during certain moments while teaching those books and movies to convince me now that students need not be utterly overwhelmed and disillusioned to learn certain sobering and formidable life and cultural lessons. Kostyuchenko’s book would easily and quickly become “one of those books.”
I say so not because Kostyuchenko’s novelistic journalism purposively shocks and disgusts with its attention to detail concerning how miserable poverty, addiction, exploitation, hard-heartedness, and indignity of every kind too many Russians live with but because the pain of the disillusionment Kostyuchenko instigates in the reader can and will overtake you. A strong moral disposition is needed to read I Love Russia.
Disillusionment often times hurts; however, when that disillusionment comes so often, one right after the other when reading and viewing those certain books and movies in a classroom, and when the scenes from those certain books and movies are so devastatingly horrendous, the classroom atmosphere quickly becomes hopeless, not inspiring. Even insisting that a writer like Kostyuchenko isn’t cynical because she cares so much for the Russian people she writes about doesn’t convince many skeptics. If she were truly cynical, why bother writing such a book? I have used this line of argument many times, making the case for other equally despairing but important books and movies.
Nonetheless, no one feels enlightened, even this middle-aged college professor who has seen, taught, and experienced some absolutely dreadful events and literary works, not having my students’ humanities reassured or strengthened isn’t worth teaching such a book like I Love Russia. After all, education should be uplifting, not despairing. Neither the students nor I should be constantly reminded how grim the world is. As an educator, I have learned to strike a stronger, more viable balance between the darkness and the light, between good and Evil. Otherwise, I am partially guilty of turning another generation of young people into cynics.
Kostyuchenko’s I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country is one of those books that burns, searing permanent scars (and scares). You can’t pretend you hadn’t read it. Is reading such devastating books, like Kostyuchenko’s, worth the trauma they inflict?
If I were a younger college professor, I probably would have taught it, at least once, if Kostyuchenko had written and published the book earlier in her career. I would have convinced myself that the book’s harrowing portraits of life under Putin are ones that American college students need to learn about so that they can understand how dangerous Putin is to world stability. I wonder at what point would I have realized that teaching this absolutely necessary but disheartening book wasn’t worth it?
Are there certain books that are unteachable, ones as a teacher I should, must avoid? I truly hate to pose such a question, and, what’s worse, I deeply hate that I have an immediate answer to that question. Yes, there are those kinds of books, but then, does that realization mean I shouldn’t read it or recommend it to my most intellectually strong students? And, yes, Kostyuchenko’s Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country tragically is that kind of book.
As I listened to Tiana Yarik narrate Kostyuchenko’s heartfelt but heartbreaking interviews in I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country with underaged girls forced into prostitution, abused patients in underfunded and understaffed mental hospitals, reckless and hopeless teenagers, persecuted environmentalists, marginalized communities of various kinds, including herself as a member of Russia’s gay rights activists … and the list of other tyrannized and crushed ordinary Russians goes on… I often felt nauseous. I listened to the book while driving, and there were numerous times I felt the urge to vomit. I chastised myself for the privilege of wanting to throw up because those Russians whom Kostyuchenko reports on are going through human and civil rights abuses while I was simply listening—in other words, passing the time by listening to their ordeals—in relative safety.
I realized that listening rather than reading Kostyuchenko’s book was a more powerful, affecting experience because I could have easily closed the book, shelving it, never picking it up again to read. By listening, I felt more connected to the Russians Kostyuchenko meets and writes about, as if I myself were interviewing them. I would have been rude and hypocritical if I had simply stood up and abandoned these already betrayed and forgotten people. And so, I persevered—again, my privilege doing so—and listened to the end.
Reader, you may be highly skeptical of me. You might think: “You write that Kostyuchenko’s book is important… you’re almost saying I should read it, too… but, if I read it, I might get as depressed as you did; therefore, you’re also saying I shouldn’t read it. Why should I read it if you say that you wouldn’t dare teach it to your students?”
Brace yourself, take numerous breaks, but you must read (or listen to) Kostyuchenko’s I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country, and disregard your own misgivings because conditions in Russia are much worse than you already know or possibly imagine. “Yes, but that reason isn’t good or substantial enough. You can say the same thing about most other authoritarian nation-states. What specifically about Russia or Putin will I learn from Kostyuchenko?” Reader, you might say, chastising me because that first justification to read her book doesn’t convince me either.
What must I say to convince you? Because like my seemingly cynical student who asked me: “Why should I care about the suffering of other people, especially people I don’t even know?” you, Reader, too, might be cynical, not wanting to overextend your own sympathies to those Russian people, and pose to me your own sphinxlike riddle, possibly catching me tongue-tied, unable to persuade you to care either. I’m guessing you’re not looking forward to throwing up while reading Kostyuchenko’s book; I experienced those moments many times. And for that reason alone, you might have already convinced yourself and just shy away from reading her book; after all, I almost abandoned the book.
Nonetheless, there is a moral, even a redeeming motivation for enduring through the nausea and apparent hopelessness that emanates from the book; and it is this: you haven’t (yet) lost your own humanity. You haven’t allowed the tyrants, murderers, war criminals, and the vilest of cynics to convince you that being moved by the suffering of others is a waste of time. I’m a student and admirer of Anna Politkovskaya, and I now have become a supporter of Elena Kostyuchenko.
Politkovskaya’s short but powerful “Prologue” in A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya has become one of the most important lessons in my war class: resist falling into that immoral Putin swamp, becoming a racist swamp creature. Politkovskaya isn’t the first or only writer to guilt-trip readers; however, in that book, Politkovskaya doesn’t want to lose her fellow Russian compatriots to the hatred and inhumanity of Putin. She was blunt. Ironically, for a journalist who was so compassionate at the same time could and was harsh sounding, even critical of her Russian reading audience who began “swimming” in that sticky and stinking swamp of racism, she, too, loved Russia.
Kostyuchenko is more subtle in her outspokenness than Politkovskaya. She doesn’t call out, challenging her audience in a confrontational, moralistic tone. She also doesn’t pretend to maintain the façade of journalistic objectivity. You feel her anger, pain, and sympathy when she interviews people living under Putinism. She cares for the humanity and soul of her fellow Russian citizens. And like her mentor, Kostyuchenko worries about your humanity and soul, even though you may live in The United States or elsewhere in the world.
There is no coincidence that Kostyuchenko also wrote for Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper Politkovskaya also worked for. Kostyuchenko mentions Politkovskaya often in her book that you soon realize that not only does she see Politkovskaya as a professional (and personal) role model for writing news articles but also for risking her own personal safety by going to the dangerous places where Putinism is most blatant.
Not only did they both write for Novaya Gazeta, the rare independent Russian-language newspaper that openly condemned Putin as a corrupt and murderous dictator, they both experienced severe repercussions for publishing scathing articles about the Putin regime: Politkovskaya was murdered, and no stranger herself to assignation attempts, and Kostyuchenko was forced into exile. If these two courageous journalists were able to write under those conditions, then surely, I can steel my stomach—as can you, Reader—and read their journalism that caused them such grave dangers.
But I must focus exclusively on Kostyuchenko, not Politkovskaya’s influence on her, to convince you, Reader, that you must read Kostyuchenko’s I Love Russia. I am sure that Kostyuchenko heard many times: “if you don’t like Russia, leave it!” Of course, she left Russia not because she hates it. Her Novaya Gazeta editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov ordered that she leave Russia for her safety.
She has been poisoned in 2022 (soon after Russia’s full-invasion of Ukraine) by the Russian state—she believes—moreover, she had been beaten in 2011 by an anti-gay thug and thus hospitalized, and faced many death threats throughout her journalist career by Putin cronies. Even when the guilt-ridden Muratov—he continues to feel responsibility for Politkovskaya’s murder—insisted she stay out of Russia, even a life in exile didn’t protect her from a murder attempt; after all, the 2022 poisoning was committed in October 2022, in Munich, Germany. Are genuine Russian journalists safe anywhere?
How could a writer who claims in her own book title to “love Russia” actually love Russia despite all the “unloving” stories she offers in her book? In Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin writes: “I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” I think Kostyuchenko would agree with Baldwin. Patriotism sometimes is a funny thing. For some people, “patriotism” means the opposite of what Baldwin and Kostyuchenko write about their respective countries. Just because a person like Baldwin and Kostyuchenko “complain” about their respective homelands doesn’t mean they hate it. They want their “motherland” or “fatherland” to be better: more inclusive, more accepting, more … loving.
More loving toward everyone, not a select few, and certainly not reserved to the Kremlin cabal of oligarchs. At times Kostyuchenko’s tone and focus may seem cruel, unkind… in essence not very loving; I need to remind you of another literary figure’s powerful insight… in Hamlet, Shakespeare writes: “I must be cruel only to be kind.” If Kostyuchenko seems cruelly unpatriotic, she isn’t. She does love Russia. Putin, not Kostyuchenko, does not love Russia. If she is ruthless in her presentations of Russian everyday life, she seems so because life in Putin’s Russia is cruel, savage, heartless…. She doesn’t exaggerate. She doesn’t invent. Putin’s own cruelty, savagery, and heartlessness demonstrate his, not Kostyuchenko’s, unpatriotic disdain for the Russian people. She would be unpatriotic by not reporting on what is happening in the Russian cities and villages. Being a genuine patriot means not lying about how great Russia is when it is falling apart because of poor leadership. Being a loving patriot means loving all of Russia, not certain parts of Russia.
Kostyuchenko doesn’t ever demean, mock, or belittle Russia or Russians; again, Putin, not Kostyuchenko, has denigrated their country and their compatriots. Her sensitivity while interviewing the Russians she encounters proves that she is patriotic. Her loyalty is demonstrated by the published fact that the entire book is devoted to them, the very people left out of Putin’s grand, totalitarian vision for Russia. They aren’t faceless and nameless nobodies; they are the people that need the warmth and support of patriotism that Putin only talks of and never delivers on. Putin, not Kostyuchenko, is the unpatriotic one, the disloyal one.
Being a journalist in Russia means possibly being murdered, and many Russian journalists have been killed for their reportage. I consider this act of courage to be among the highest demonstrations of patriotism. Kostyuchenko is a courageous and patriotic journalist. And I only hope that I can read more of her journalism, and that I can continue to encourage you to read her work, too.